The Effect of Multisensory Pseudo-Haptic Feedback on Perception of Virtual Weight

Jinwook Kim,Jeongmi Lee,Seonghyeon Kim

doi:10.1109/access.2022.3140438

Abstract

Providing realistic haptic feedback of virtual objects is critical for immersive VR experience, and there have been many approaches to simulate haptic properties. Most of them, however, are limited to a narrow modulation range of simulated perception. To overcome this limitation, the current paper examines the effect of multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback that combines control-to-display (C/D) ratio manipulation and electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) on simulated weight perception. In two experiments, we independently manipulated the C/D ratio and EMS status and observed the effects on the absolute and difference thresholds of simulated weight perception. From the absolute thresholds results, we specify the effective range of C/D ratio that can successfully induce weight perception and show that the range can be more than twice widened by multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the sensitivity to weight difference increases as the standard C/D ratio decreases from the difference thresholds results, which provides practical design guidelines for assigning multiple levels of weight to virtual objects. This study contributes to understanding the psychological effects of multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback on simulated weight perception in virtual reality.

Highlights

The development of light-weighted and portable [31] virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) has increased accessibility and usability of VR for the general public [2], and drawn researchers’ attention
In the absolute threshold experiment, we aimed to investigate the effects of the C/D ratio and electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) on simulated weight perception of virtual objects and verify whether and how multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback widens the modulation range of simulated weight perception
It was hypothesized that our multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback that combines visual and somatosensory stimulation would generate a wider modulation range of simulated weight perception (Experiment 1), and users’ sensitivity to simulated weight difference would vary across levels of multisensory pseudo-haptic feedback (Experiment 2)

Summary

Introduction

The development of light-weighted and portable [31] virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) has increased accessibility and usability of VR for the general public [2], and drawn researchers’ attention. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the usage of VR in everyday life has increased tremendously, including virtual conferences and meetings [42]. Based on this development and social needs, VR applications that provide entertainment [22], [27] and productivity (e.g., vSpatial, Oculus Medium) are being developed actively. Foremost of the issues is that VR needs to provide more immersive and realistic haptic experiences to augment the sense of real-world in the virtual environment [39], and to let users acquire more information and react properly as in the real-world. Companies and researchers are taking various approaches to adopt realistic haptic experience in the virtual environment [6], [23]

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Conclusion