Perception of a Haptic Stimulus Presented Under the Foot Under Workload

Abstract

It is clear that the haptic channel can be exploited as a communication medium for several tasks of everyday life. Here we investigated whether such communication can be altered in a cognitive load situation. We studied the perception of a vibrotactile stimulus presented under the foot when the attention is loaded by another task (cognitive load). The results demonstrated a significant influence of workload on the perception of the vibrotactile stimulus. Overall, we observed that the average score in the single-task (at rest) condition was greater than the overall mean score in the dual-task conditions (counting forwards, counting backwards, and walking). The walking task was the task that most influenced the perception of the vibrotactile stimulus presented under the foot.