Feel the Presence: The Effects of Haptic Sensation on VR-Based Human-Robot Interaction
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the limitation of ecological validity and immersion in virtual reality (VR) due to the absence of haptic feedback by introducing a high-fidelity haptic and force-feedback VR glove in a help-request scenario. For the first time, it systematically evaluates the impact of such tactile realism—compared to conventional hand controllers—on users’ sense of presence and their perception of robots. Leveraging a virtual simulation platform combined with behavioral assessment methods, the findings demonstrate that high-fidelity haptic feedback significantly enhances both social and self-presence, fosters more natural and diverse bodily interactions, and positively augments users’ affective perceptions of robots. These results establish a novel paradigm for embodied human–robot interaction in immersive virtual environments.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) has been increasingly utilised as a simulation tool for human-robot interaction (HRI) studies due to its ability to facilitate fast and flexible prototyping. Despite efforts to achieve high validity in VR studies, haptic sensation, an essential sensory modality for perception and a critical factor in enhancing VR realism, is often absent from these experiments. Studying an interactive robot help-seeking scenario, we used a VR simulation with haptic gloves that provide highly realistic tactile and force feedback to examine the effects of haptic sensation on VR-based HRI. We compared participants’ sense of presence and their assessments of the robot to a traditional setup using hand controllers. Our results indicate that haptic sensation enhanced participants’ social and self-presence in VR and fostered more diverse and natural bodily engagement. Additionally, haptic sensations significantly influenced participants’ affective-related perceptions of the robot. Our study provides insights to guide HRI researchers in building VR-based simulations that better align with their study contexts and objectives.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
haptic sensation
virtual reality
human-robot interaction
sense of presence
VR realism
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
haptic sensation
virtual reality
human-robot interaction
presence
tactile feedback
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