A Study on Haptic Media to Support Verbal Explanations

Abstract

A digital textbook is an educational tool and possible to convey knowledge through a variety of teaching and learning media such as texts, graphs, figures, audios, and videos attached as digital data embedded in the contents. We might feel like we can understand other people’s experiential knowledge through their verbal explanations or expository text with those additional supportive media. However, it is uncertain what we obtained is actually the same as what to be conveyed, because this knowledge is subjective and appears different in the human sensors or receptors. For example, if we obtained knowledge through haptic perception then it will be difficult to explain because of its implicit and subjective characteristics. Even if visual or audio media are used to support the explanation, it is still insufficient and the receivers usually cannot understand it objectively. A new medium such as using a haptic device along with an expository text might help in this case. However, up to now there is no digital textbook equipped with such supporting media. Toward the future of digital textbooks, a new medium to pass on subjective knowledge such as feeling of touch or sense of force will be desired. Therefore firstly, it is necessary to investigate the possibility of a new medium to convey such an intuitive knowledge. In this paper, we present our studies of knowledge acquisition using an experimental system which helps acquire verbal explanation along with haptic or sense of force knowledge. Taking an example of conveying a potter’s knowledge, specifically skills in forming clay cup with a trowel, our preliminary results showed that it is promising to use haptic support for verbal explanations in some situations.