Perceptual Attributes of Rotary Switches

What is the perceptual space associated with switches and buttons that we use everyday? How can we design the engineering specifications for switches and buttons such that the end products reach target percepts? For the past few years, we have been studying a rotary switch with the goal to gain a better understanding of the perceptual attributes of switches. Specifically, the perceptual thresholds for dynamic changes in a rotary switch were evaluated in several experiments using an adaptive procedure. We found that humans are extremely sensitive to dynamic changes in the torque-travel curve of a switch. We also found that the thresholds depend more on the spatial-frequency characteristics of the switch than on the temporal-frequency contents. Our work has and will continue to shed new light on achieving haptic harmony among the objects we use on a daily basis.