Tactile Information Flow Ontology Eirini V. Myrgioti, Vasileios G. Chouvardas, Amalia N. Miliou, and Miltiadis K. Hatalis Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 541 24, Thessaloniki, Greece e-mail: {emyrgiot, vchou, amiliou, mkh}@csd.auth.gr Abstract - Tactile displays are interfaces that enable users to access information through the human skin using the sense of tactation. In order for the software to better enhance the tactile information generation, flow and perception and also drive tactile interfaces, we need a formal definition of tactile information. In this article, we propose a model for tactile information flow using ontologies. The proposed model analyzes the existing knowledge in tactile information and helps defining the types of information that take part in the tactile information flow. The new model can be used to identify how tactile displays can enhance perception of information and human-computer interaction and assist the development of software for tactile displays. Index Terms - Ontologies, software development, tactile displays, tactile information, UML. I. INTRODUCTION A tactile display is a human-computer interface that utilizes tactation to present information. Tactile information is created by a tactile display as a set of signals that are conveyed to the skin receptors through the skin. The receptors transmit tactile signals to the cerebral cortex of the brain through neural system in order to form a perception [1]. Software development for tactile displays is not a trivial task, because developers must have thorough knowledge about the skin and the nervous system physiology. For the software to effectively drive tactile displays, a well structured tactile information representation is required. However, different features of a touched object are perceived following various combinations in the skin- nerves-brain scheme. As tactile information is modulated by the channel, we must first model its flow. Although there is a lot of research about tactile sensation [2], [3], [4] and tactile information processing [5], [6], [7], a formal definition of tactile information has not yet been developed. This may be due to the fact that tactile information flow is a complex phenomenon, containing many interrelated elements such as different kinds of skin receptors and several brain areas. The relations between those elements and their properties describe the procedure of generation and processing of tactile information. Ontologies play a critical role in the software development process since they define the basic terms and relations comprising the vocabulary of a topic area as well as the rules for combining terms and relations to define extensions to the vocabulary [8], [9]. The aim of this paper is to provide a formal definition and modeling of tactile information flow using ontologies. This definition will be used to construct a tactile information model for tactile display software development. The paper is organized as follows: Section two presents the methodology, design considerations and modeling concepts for building the tactile information flow ontology. The elements that take part in the tactile information flow are discussed in section three. In section four the UML diagram of the ontology is described. Finally, in section five, conclusions and future research directions are discussed. II. METHODOLOGY Tactile interaction is related to all aspects of touch and this involves not only sensation by the skin but also perception by the brain [2]. There are different kinds of receptors in human skin related to touch, limb and joint movement, and temperature sensing [3], [10]. Tactile perception results from combining inputs from all receptors in a given skin area, as all skin receptors are simultaneously stimulated [2]. The final processing of the tactile signals is done by the brain and specifically in the cerebral cortex as reported by [5], [6], [7]. The ontology developed in our work includes basic concepts in the tactile information processing domain and relations among them. These concepts are defined and ICCTA 2007, 1-3 September 2007, Alexandria, Egypt 263