Modern audio-visual media rely on compact representations for efficient storage and transmission, whereas realistic digital touch still depends on high-resolution tactile recordings. Existing approaches for representing tactile signals constrain manipulation and limit the generation of new content. Here, we introduce two compact representations, spectral beta and spectral slope, that capture the temporal spectral structure of finger-surface friction signals while preserving perceptually relevant information. Spectral beta models spectral skewness using a two-parameter beta distribution, whereas spectral slope approximates the spectrum with an asymmetric bandpass filter defined by low- and high-pass orders. We evaluated these representations in a perceptual study with 14 participants using five virtual textures rendered on a friction-modulation display and compared them with physical textures and high-fidelity reproductions of recorded signals. Spectral beta achieved perceptual similarity ratings comparable to those of the original high-fidelity reproductions. Regression analysis further showed that matching spectral energy across nine critical frequency bands was the strongest predictor of perceived realism. Together, these findings suggest that tactile texture perception depends primarily on fundamental temporal spectral patterns and that modeling these patterns is sufficient for perceptually realistic rendering. These results establish an efficient and scalable framework for haptic compression, communication, and synthetic texture generation.

翻译：现代视听媒体依赖紧凑表示实现高效存储与传输，而真实的数字触觉仍依赖于高分辨率触觉记录。现有触觉信号表示方法约束了信号操作并限制了新内容的生成。本文提出两种紧凑表示——频谱贝塔（spectral beta）与频谱斜率（spectral slope），在保留感知相关信息的同时，捕捉手指-表面摩擦信号的时域频谱结构。频谱贝塔采用双参数贝塔分布建模频谱偏度，频谱斜率则通过低通与高通阶数定义的非对称带通滤波器逼近频谱。我们以14名参与者进行感知研究，在摩擦调制显示器上渲染五种虚拟纹理，并与物理纹理及高保真记录复制信号进行对比评估。结果表明，频谱贝塔在感知相似度评分上可与原始高保真复制信号相匹敌。回归分析进一步显示，匹配九个关键频带的频谱能量是感知真实性的最强预测因子。这些发现表明，触觉纹理感知主要依赖基础时域频谱模式，对此类模式建模即可实现感知真实的渲染。本研究为触觉压缩、通信及合成纹理生成建立了高效可扩展的框架。