Increasing the Perceived Speed of Dynamic Handheld Shape Displays through Visuo-Haptic Illusions

Abstract

Dynamic handheld shape displays, with the capacity to change their shapes dynamically while being grasped by the user, have been developed to enable realistic haptic interaction with various virtual objects in virtual reality. However, these devices tend to be limited in their actuation speed owing to the small size requirement necessary for users to grab, which reduces the variability of virtual objects that they can render. In this study, we employ visuo-haptic illusions to improve the perceived actuation speed of dynamic handheld shape displays in VR to alleviate this problem. We present two approaches: distance modification, which increases the visual travel distance, and time modification, which decreases the visual travel time, both of which were applied to an existing handheld shape display. Experimental results suggest that the perception of the device's actuation speed is improved by our approach, while participants remain unaware of the discrepancy between visual and haptic speed.