Vibrations emitted by smartphones have become a part of our daily lives. The vibrations can add various meanings to the information people obtain from the screen. Hence, it is worth understanding the perceptual transformation of vibration with ordinary devices to evaluate the possibility of enriched vibrotactile communication via smartphones. This study assessed the reproducibility of vibrotactile sensations via smartphone in the in-the-wild environment. To realize improved haptic design to communicate with smartphone users smoothly, we also focused on the moderation effects of the in-the-wild environments on the vibrotactile sensations: the physical specifications of mobile devices, the manner of device operation by users, and the personal traits of the users about the desire for touch. We conducted a Web-based in-the-wild experiment instead of a laboratory experiment to reproduce an environment as close to the daily lives of users as possible. Through a series of analyses, we revealed that users perceive the weight of vibration stimuli to be higher in sensation magnitude than intensity under identical conditions of vibration stimuli. We also showed that it is desirable to consider the moderation effects of the in-the-wild environments for realizing better tactile system design to maximize the impact of vibrotactile stimuli.

翻译：智能手机发出的振动已成为我们日常生活的一部分。振动能够为人从屏幕获取的信息增添各种含义。因此，理解普通设备上振动的感知转化过程，对于评估通过智能手机实现更丰富振动触觉通信的可能性具有重要价值。本研究评估了自然场景环境下智能手机振动触觉感知的可复现性。为了实现与智能手机用户顺畅沟通的优化触觉设计，我们还聚焦于自然场景环境对振动触觉感知的调节效应：移动设备的物理规格、用户操作设备的方式，以及用户对触觉渴望的个人特质。我们采用基于网络的自然场景实验而非实验室实验，以尽可能还原用户日常生活的环境。通过一系列分析发现，在相同振动刺激条件下，用户感知到的振动刺激重量在感知量级上高于强度。同时，研究结果表明，为最大化振动刺激效果而设计更优触觉系统时，需要考虑自然场景环境的调节效应。