A Wrist-Worn Thermohaptic Device for Graceful Interruption

Thermal haptics is a potential system output modality for wearable devices that promises to function at the periphery of human attention. When adequately combined with existing attention-governing mechanisms of the human mind, it could be used for interrupting the human agent at a time when the negative influence on the ongoing activity is minimal. In this article we present our self-mitigated interruption concept (essentially a symbiosis of artificial external stimuli tuned to existing human attention management mechanisms) and perform a pilot study laying the ground for using a wrist-worn thermohaptic actuator for self-mitigating interruption. We then develop a prototype and perform an insightful pilot study.
We frame our empirical thermohaptic experimental work in terms of Peripheral Interaction concepts and show how this new approach to Human-Computer Interaction relates to the Context-Aware-systems-inspired approach “Egocentric Interaction” aimed at supporting the design of envisioned Wearable Personal Assistants intended to, among other things, help human perception and cognition with the management of interruptions.