We investigate the role of contact location information on the perception of local features dur- ing contour following in a virtual environment. An absolute identification experiment is conducted under force-alone and force-plus-contact-location conditions to investigate the effect of the contact location in- formation. The results show that the participants identify the local features significantly better in terms of higher information transfer for the force-plus-contact-location condition, while no significant difference was found for measures of the efficacy of contour following between the two conditions. Further data analyses indicate that the improved identification of local features with contact location information is due to the improved identification of small surface features.

Development of shoot and root, leaf water potential and photosynthetic rate affected by water stress in early growing stage of tobacco were surveyed to interpret stress response in terms of plant physiological and agricultural aspects. The growth of shoot and root was highly suppressed by water stress and the difference in dry weight by rewatering was smaller in root than in shoot. The total root length was highly decreased by water stress and the lengths of root for water stress and non-stress were 74m and 84m, respectively, after rewatering. The root growth treated by water stress was increased between 2nd and 3rd day after treatment indicating that temporary water stress at early growing stage might have increased of root zone activity for early growth stage. The leaf water potentials were decreased to -7.63MPa, -9.47MPa, -11.89MPa, -13MPa at the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th day by water stress. The relative water contents were 75%, 62% and 57% at the 3rd, 4th and 5th day after treatment. Photosynthesis was reduced largely by water stress. The photosynthetic rate after treatment at 2nd day and 3rd day was dropped to 18.15~mu mol. CO2 /m2 ㆍsec-1 and 9.35~mu mol. CO2 /m2 ㆍsec-1 . It was never recovered to the normal, even after rewatering. Stomatal conductance had been reduced since 2nd day after treatment and increased after rewatering.