Visual, vibrotactile, and force feedback of collisions in virtual environments: Effects on performance, mental workload and spatial orientation

Abstract

In a laboratory study with N = 42 participants (thirty novices and twelve virtual reality (VR) specialists), we evaluated different variants of collision feedback in a virtual environment. Individuals had to perform several object manipulations (peg-in-hole, narrow passage) in a virtual assembly scenario with three different collision feedback modalities (visual vs. vibrotactile vs. force feedback) and two different task complexities (small vs. large peg or wide vs. narrow passage, respectively). The feedback modalities were evaluated in terms of assembly performance (completion time, movement precision) and subjective user ratings. Altogether, results indicate that high resolution force feedback provided by a robotic arm as input device is superior in terms of movement precision, mental workload, and spatial orientation compared to vibrotactile and visual feedback systems. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.