A Study of a Cutaneous Code Applied to the Communication Needs of the Working Diver

As an initial study into the applicability of cutaneous communication for divers, a series of sixteen discrete, left-right (L-R) vibrotactile stimulus patterns was delivered to the lower abdomen of six divers whose task it was to correctly identify the spatio-temporal sequency of each pattern. Correlation analysis of the results showed that older subjects made significantly more errors, and complex code patterns containing the L-R changes in direction contributed significantly to subject error. However, the overall design of L-R patterns was found to be basically satisfactory as a framework on which to build an optimal cutaneous code. Further development of code design and hardware are suggested. (Author)