Presentation of thermal sensation through preliminary adjustment of adapting skin temperature

Since the sense of touch inherently involves thermal phenomena, presenting thermal sensation on a handheld man-machine interface holds great potential. However, when users are in tactile contact with a device, it is difficult to enable them to perceive a thermal sensation at the same time as the relevant electronic event because the thermal responses of both a thermal display and the human skin are slower than mechanical or electrical responses. In order to overcome this problem, a suitable method for the presentation of rapid changes in temperature is required. While using a highly efficient thermal device and applying a large amount of energy may be one possible approach to speeding up thermal perception, the authors propose an alternative approach that uses a preliminary adjustment of the skin's adapting temperature without increasing the intensity of the thermal stimuli. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method is applicable for the improvement of thermal perception and, thereby, the response time.