The Effects of Haptic Feedback on sEMG Input Performance

Abstract

Commodity electromyography (EMG) armbands are inexpensive tools that can be integrated into user interfaces. EMG involves measuring electrical activity associated with muscle movement and thus presents a novel input channel in human computer interaction. However, using EMG interfaces could present a large cognitive load, as the EMG muscle movements may not translate well to the computer task. This work explores the use of the haptic sensory feedback channel to augment the performance of EMG input interfaces. A novel EMG controlled computer game that used a haptic sensory feedback loop in addition to the visual feedback was developed. To validate and more importantly evaluate the effectiveness of the haptic feedback, extensive user studies were conducted. The results of the user study showed that adding haptic feedback to sEMG control increased performance in some cases at minimum and increased performance in a statistically significant manner in other cases.