Yang, X. D., Bischof, W. F. and Boulanger, P. (2008). Validating the performance of haptic motor skill learning. 16th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Visual Environments and Teleoperator Systems, Reno, USA, March 13-14, 129-135.

The effect of haptic interfaces on motor skill training has been widely studied. However, relatively little is known about whether haptic training can promote long-term motor skill acquisition. In this paper, we report two experimental studies that investigated the effectiveness of visuohaptic (visual + haptic) interfaces in helping people develop short-term motor skills and long-term motor skills. Our first study compared training outcomes of visuohaptic training, visual training, and no-assistance training. We found that visual training was the most effective when helping participants develop short-term motor skills. Our second experiment assessed the abilities of visual training and visuohaptic training in promoting the development of long-term motor skills. Participants were trained during a four-day-long period. The findings showed that the participants gained long-term skills through both training methods, and the training outcomes for both methods were similar. The results of our study indicated that visuohaptic training is promising, but there were still a lot needed to be improved.

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