Inducing Simple Actions While Working by Generating Tactile Apparent Motion

While working, people often perform purposeless actions, such as spinning pens and swinging their feet. The pleasant and addictive tactile feedback generated by those actions seems to trigger them. This is based on a principle called "operant conditioning." "Operant conditioning" is a phenomenon of change in people's behavior because of a reward obtained from the purposeless action. In previous studies, operant conditioning for the behaviors of animals such as mice have been discussed, but conditioning for the behaviors of humans has had little investigation. Therefore, we designed a feedback for people's action as a reward of conditioning, especially tactile stimulation, and verified whether the stimuli can induce a simple action. We selected "tactile apparent motion" as the reward because it can provide comfort by stimulating a mechanoreceptor called C tactile afferent. We designed a wearable device that can generate tactile apparent motion from a simple input action, such as tapping the heel. Using this device, we conducted user studies. The results showed that fast tactile apparent motion is effective in inducing simple actions repeatedly. Moreover, simple actions can be induced by tactile apparent motion even in the long term.