Effect of loudness on the haptic force-feedback perception in virtual environments

Abstract

Due to increasing usage of the haptic modality in virtual reality applications, the perceptual aspects of the interaction between haptic and auditory modalities is becoming more important. In our daily life, force-feedback which we perceive in our hands after beating a drum as well as the loudness of the drum sound give us the required information about how much force we have applied when playing a drum. In this study, psychophysical experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of loudness on the haptic force-feedback perception (strength) by playing a virtual drum. Subjects were presented (1) only haptic force-feedback information, (2) only auditory information, and (3) auditory and haptic information together. In each experiment, subjects were asked how much force they had applied when playing the virtual drum. The results show that the magnitude of strength increases with increasing loudness in spite of no change in force-feedback as generated by a virtual drum and applied to the subject’s hand. These results contribute to our knowledge on how to effectively combine haptic and auditory information in virtual environments. [Work supported by IGSN, Ruhr University Bochum.]