Effects of audio-tactile floor augmentation on perception and action during walking: preliminary results

Two pilot experiments have been conducted to investigate the influence of auditory and underfoot tactile cues respectively on perception and action during walking. The for- mer experiment shows that illusory tactile perception can be generated, biased by the intensity of auditory cues in the low-frequency region. The latter experiment suggests that non-visual foot-level augmentation may influence the gait cycle in normally able subjects. In the respective limits of significance, taken together both experiments suggest that the introduction of ecological elements of augmented reality at floor level may be exploited for the development of novel multimodal interfaces.