Clothes Vibration Device for Producing Tactile Stimuli to Evoke the Perception of Strong Wind

In virtual environments, wind displays can reproduce the sensation of wind to enhance user experience such as presence. Enabling users to perceive strong winds can benefit several applications, such as disaster education and entertainment content. However, the large and bulky equipment required to blow strong winds across the entire body of the user limit its application. Although cross-modal effects are proposed to alter wind perceptions through multisensory stimuli, but methods to induce the perception of strong winds without generating a strong wind need further exploration. In this study, we propose a method to create an illusion of strong wind by providing tactile stimuli through clothes. We developed a compact and lightweight wearable device that vibrates the fabric by a motor to simulate its fluttering motion under a strong wi nd. Two user studies were conducted to investigate the effect of vibrating the clothes on the perceived wind velocity, realness of the wind, and presence. The results indicated that tactile stimuli provided by vibrating the clothes increased the perceived wind velocity to a similar level as the strong wind exceeding $10 \mathrm{~m} / \mathrm{s}$ while the parameters of the physical wind were unchanged. It was also revealed that the vibration of the clothes decreases the realness of the actual wind and a visual scene of the clothes of the avatar flutter increases presence. Thus, the proposed wearable device is useful for creating the experience of strong winds while keeping the wind displays compact.