After doing some more research for my thesis, I found the below papers really intriguing:
This paper focuses on the development of an electrostatic vibration based programmable friction display for conveying spatially distributed visual content. It uses a graphic-to-tactile translation method based on color to tactile mapping developing by the team.
Two quotes of significance are:
Previous work on electrovibration devices has demonstrated that primitive shapes could be identified by the visually impaired (p4).
In order to clearly recognize the two stimuli, a rule of thumb is that they must be ~3 jnds apart (or three standard deviations apart on the cumulative psychometric function) (p4).
jnds = just noticeable differences
This paper is about an experiment conducted to measure and model how uniform color associated with emotions (based on previous studies) change when texture is added to the color samples. It concludes saying that texture strongly affects emotions. Although the outcome was expected, it was interesting to read about the research team's methodology.
Our results show that texture fully determines the responses on the Hard-Soft scale, and plays a role of decreasing weight for the masculine–feminine, heavy–light, and warm–cool scales.
We conclude that when textured samples are used in color emotion studies, the psychological responses may be strongly affected by texture.
This is a patent from 1994 for mapping tactile symbols to color. The patent status is expired but nevertheless it is an interesting concept.
A paper that gives general overview of haptic devices for VR.
The perception of touch is related to three components: tactile, cutaneous and kinesthetic. In humans, these sensations cannot be separated, but the same does not happen with the equipment developed to simulate these ones (Aziz & Mousavi, 2009; Oakley et al., 2000).
Burdea (2000) divides the haptic feedback modality in two groups: tactile feedback and force feedback. Tactile feedback allows users to feel the rugosity of virtual surfaces, their edges, temperature, or slippage. Force feedback reproduces the weight of grasped virtual objects, their mechanical compliance, inertia, as well as motion constraints.
KEYWORDS
Finally, below are some keywords to help with my research, starting from 'high priority' to 'interesting to explore':
Materiality in VR
Tactile interfaces
Textile interfaces
Tangible media
Touch types: cutaneous, kinesthetic and haptic
Materiality study
Textures in VR
Accessibility in VR
VR for the blind
Other random ideas:
Material to sensation-describing-adjective mapping?