Investigating the Effect of Prior Exposure and Fidelity on Quality and Realism Perception of VR Digital Twins

2025-09-24

AI Summary

This study investigates how prior physical interaction with an object and digital twin (DT) fidelity—specifically texture resolution and geometric detail—affect perceived haptic quality and realism in virtual reality (VR). A mixed-factor experimental design was employed, presenting participants with multi-fidelity DT models in VR and collecting subjective ratings alongside statistical analysis. Results show that higher texture resolution significantly enhances both perceived realism and quality, whereas increased geometric detail improves only quality perception—not realism. Crucially, prior physical exposure to the real-world object did not significantly modulate either perception, challenging the prevailing assumption that embodied experience inherently strengthens virtual perceptual fidelity. These findings reveal an asymmetric functional role of visual fidelity dimensions in VR perception, indicating that texture and geometry contribute differentially to distinct perceptual constructs. The work provides empirical guidance for resource-efficient DT modeling and advances theoretical understanding of multimodal perception in VR human–computer interaction.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Qualitative Reasoning
• Computer Vision: Low Level & Physics-based Vision

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Data quality aspects of human-annotated datasets

Abstract

This study explores how prior exposure to physical objects influences the quality and realism perception of Digital Twins (DT) with varying levels of fidelity in Virtual Reality (VR). In a mixed experimental design, 24 participants were divided into two equal groups: an exposure group, in which members were shown physical objects before inspecting and rating their replicas in VR, and a control group without prior knowledge. Three objects were presented, each under four fidelity conditions with varying texture resolution and geometric detail. Participants rated perceived quality and realism through in-VR self-reports. Statistical analysis revealed that texture resolution significantly affected realism and quality perception, whereas geometric detail only influenced quality ratings. Investigating the between-factor, no significant effect of exposure on quality and realism perception was found. These findings raise important questions about the cognitive relationship between physical objects and their digital counterparts and how fidelity influences the perception of DTs in VR.

Problem

• How prior exposure to physical objects affects VR digital twin perception
• How varying fidelity levels influence quality and realism ratings
• Whether texture resolution and geometric detail differently impact perception

Innovation

• VR digital twins with varying fidelity levels
• Texture resolution significantly impacts realism perception
• Prior exposure shows no significant perceptual effect