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Feel the Presence: The Effects of Haptic Sensation on VR-Based Human-Robot Interaction

Xinyan Yu, Marius Hoggenmüller, Tram Thi Minh Tran, Martin Tomitsch

TL;DR

The paper investigates how enabling realistic haptic feedback via HaptX gloves in a VR-based HRI study affects presence and robot perception, compared to a hand-controller baseline. Using a replicated robot-help-seeking scenario, it finds that haptics significantly boost social and self-presence and foster more natural bodily engagement, which in turn enhances likeability and affective trust toward the robot. The results support incorporating high-fidelity haptic feedback in VR prototyping to improve validity and ecological realism for social and embodied HRI evaluations, particularly for spontaneous interactions. Limitations include a small, unequal sample and device-related confounds that warrant further study across diverse scenarios and broader participant pools.

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.

Feel the Presence: The Effects of Haptic Sensation on VR-Based Human-Robot Interaction

TL;DR

The paper investigates how enabling realistic haptic feedback via HaptX gloves in a VR-based HRI study affects presence and robot perception, compared to a hand-controller baseline. Using a replicated robot-help-seeking scenario, it finds that haptics significantly boost social and self-presence and foster more natural bodily engagement, which in turn enhances likeability and affective trust toward the robot. The results support incorporating high-fidelity haptic feedback in VR prototyping to improve validity and ecological realism for social and embodied HRI evaluations, particularly for spontaneous interactions. Limitations include a small, unequal sample and device-related confounds that warrant further study across diverse scenarios and broader participant pools.

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.
Paper Structure (20 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 20 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. VR as a prototyping tool for HRI
  4. Importance of haptics in VR
  5. Haptic sensation in VR-based prototyping and evaluation
  6. Methodology
  7. Study design
  8. Study procedure
  9. Study apparatus and implementation
  10. Data collection
  11. Data analysis
  12. Results
  13. General observations
  14. Sense of presence
  15. Participants assessments of the robot
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Study Design
  • Figure 2: Quantitative Results. Left: Box plot of Multimodal Presence Scale (M: Mean, SD: Standard Deviations). Right: Participants’ assessments of the robot based on estimated marginal means (*: $p < 0.05$, **: $p < 0.01$, ***: $p < 0.001$).