Augmenting Physics Education with Haptic and Visual Feedback

This research evaluated visual and haptic feedback for enhancing operator situational awareness during multitasking drone operations, investigating how task complexity influenced feedback effectiveness. Two virtual reality experiments were conducted: Study 1 assessed three types of visual feedback (Static, Blink, and Shake), while Study 2 compared visual, haptic, and visual-haptic multimodal feedback across varying task complexity levels determined by target density. Participants performed drone operation tasks requiring simultaneous obstacle avoidance and target counting. Results revealed that dynamic visual feedback (Shake) significantly improved primary task accuracy, reduced cognitive load, and was the preferred visual feedback type. Furthermore, haptic and visual-haptic feedback significantly shortened obstacle avoidance reaction times and decreased cognitive workload compared to visual feedback. Task complexity proved to be a critical factor: while visual feedback sufficed for low complexity scenarios, visual-haptic feedback offered distinct advantages in medium and high complexity tasks, providing insights for complexity-responsive drone interface design.

We routinely have physical interactions with others, whether it be handing someone a glass of water or jointly moving a heavy object together. These sensorimotor interactions between humans typically rely on visual feedback and haptic feedback. Recent single-participant studies have highlighted that the unique noise and time delays of each sense must be considered to estimate the state, such as the position and velocity, of one's own movement. However, we know little about how visual feedback and haptic feedback are used to estimate the state of another person. Here, we tested how humans utilize visual feedback and haptic feedback to estimate the state of their partner during a collaborative sensorimotor task. Across two experiments, we show that visual feedback dominated haptic feedback during collaboration. Specifically, we found that visual feedback led to comparatively lower task-relevant movement variability, smoother collaborative movements, and faster trial completion times. We also developed an optimal feedback controller that considered the noise and time delays of both visual feedback and haptic feedback to estimate the state of a partner. This model was able to capture both lower task-relevant movement variability and smoother collaborative movements. Taken together, our empirical and modeling results support the idea that visual accuracy is more important than haptic speed to perform state estimation of a partner during collaboration.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Physical collaboration between two or more individuals involves both visual and haptic feedback. Here, we investigated how visual and haptic feedback is used to estimate the movements of a partner during a collaboration task. Our experimental and computational modeling results parsimoniously support the notion that greater visual accuracy is more important than faster yet noisier haptic feedback when estimating the state of a partner.

The focus of this research is on the perception and control of forces produced by the hand. It is known that the change in force that subjects can reliably discriminate is approximately 6%, and that subjects are able to match forces generated by two corresponding muscle groups with an accuracy of approximately 15%. The present study was concerned with measuring the ability to control finger force using only haptic feedback and both haptic and visual feedback. It was found that subjects were surprising good at controlling forces for up to 120 s using only haptic feedback with mean absolute errors of less than 0.3 N over a force range of 2–6 N. The variation in force averaged 10.5% when haptic feedback was available and decreased to 6% when visual feedback was also provided. These results provide a framework for specifying the characteristics of force-reflecting haptic interfaces that should optimize human perception.

Most prosthetic hand users are limited to visual feedback of movement performance. To characterize the benefit of vibrotactile feedback for a task that lacks haptic feedback, a virtual environment was used to experimentally manipulate visual, task-relevant haptic, and remote vibrotactile feedback on simple object manipulation for unimpaired subjects. The combination of visual and remote vibrotactile feedback was compared to visual feedback alone, and to simultaneous visual and direct haptic feedback to represent ideal performance. Visual and vibrotactile feedback resulted in improvement of most performance variables including difficulty ratings relative to visual feedback alone. However addition of sensory cues to visual feedback increased trial times and the increase was steeper for vibrotactile than for haptic feedback. Specifically, during vibrotactile feedback the velocity did not change, but the duration of execution increased due to improved performance, resulting in increased trial times. This result suggests future exploration of performance improvement and execution speed for augmented sensory feedback.

The ability to control index finger and elbow flexion forces was measured while subjects used either haptic feedback or both haptic and visual feedback to control the forces exerted. Over a 120-s time period subjects were able to control the finger forces ranging from 2 to 6 N to within 1 N using only haptic feedback, and elbow flexion forces to within 4.5 N over a force range of 10-30 N. At the same force amplitude there was no significant difference between the two muscle groups in the precision or accuracy with which the force could be controlled, suggesting that there is not a proximal to distal gradient in force control as has been found for the control of limb movement and position.

In this paper, we present a study that evaluates the effect of visual and haptic feedbacks and their relevance to human performance in a needle insertion task. A virtual needle insertion simulator with a four-layer tissue model (skin, fat, muscle, and bone) and haptic feedback is used for perceptual experiments. The task was to detect the puncture of a particular layer using haptic and visual cues provided by the simulation. The results show that the addition of force feedback reduces error in detection of transitions between tissue layers by at least 55%. The addition of real-time visual feedback (image overlay) improved user performance by at least 87% in scenarios without force feedback. Presentation of both force and visual feedback improved performance by at least 43% in comparison to scenarios without feedback. These results suggest that real-time image overlay provides greater improvement in performance than force feedback.

This study investigates the influence of shoe type (sneakers and safety boots), age, and gender on the perception of haptic pulse feedback provided by a prototype accelerator pedal in a running stationary vehicle. Haptic feedback can be a less distracting alternative to traditionally visual and auditory in-vehicle feedback. However, to be effective, the device delivering the haptic feedback needs to be in contact with the person. Factors such as shoe type vary naturally over the season and could render feedback that is perceived well in one situation, unnoticeable in another. In this study, we evaluate factors that can influence the subjective perception of haptic feedback in a stationary but running car: shoe type, age, and gender. Thirty-six drivers within three age groups (≤39, 40-59, and ≥60) took part. For each haptic feedback, participants rated intensity, urgency, and comfort via a questionnaire. The perception of the haptic feedback is significantly influenced by the interaction between the pulse's duration and force amplitude and the participant's age and gender but not shoe type. The results indicate that it is important to consider different age groups and gender in the evaluation of haptic feedback. Future research might also look into approaches to adapt haptic feedback to the individual driver's preferences. Findings from this study can be applied to the design of an accelerator pedal in a car, for example, for a nonvisual in-vehicle warning, but also to plan user studies with a haptic pedal in general.

Evaluation of Motor Training Performance in 3D Virtual Environment via Combining Brain-computer Interface and Haptic Feedback

Virtual reality can help to learn basic laparoscopic tasks. However, no haptic feedback, which alerts for tissue slippage, is provided by most simulators, although, it might be of influence for the decrease of errors. This study explored whether visual or tactile feedback can be used to alert the surgeon of tissue slippage. Twenty-four participants performed a laparoscopic grasping task and where provided with either visual or tactile feedback about tissue slippage. The reaction time with the visual feedback was compared to the reaction time with tactile feedback signal. The results showed that when tissue slippage is simulated, tactile feedback shows significant faster reaction times (269ms) than visual feedback signals (398ms).

The perceptual deadband (PD) data reduction scheme allows for a significant reduction of network load in real-time haptic communication scenarios. Aiming to ascertain how the optimum PD data reduction parameter k is best determined, an experiment was conducted in which a possible interaction of PD data reduction and visual feedback on haptic feedback quality and task performance was investigated. The results show that when haptic feedback is complemented with visual feedback, haptic data reduction affects haptic feedback quality at a lower data reduction rate than it affects task performance. When visual feedback is missing, however, this effect is reversed. These results imply that the perception of haptic feedback quality is markedly influenced by visual sensory input as well as task requirements; hence, it is recommended to consider feedback quality and task performance in the optimization of PD reduction before such schemes may be applied to industrial telepresence and teleaction systems.

How does haptic feedback during human-virtual character interaction affect participant physiological responses in virtual reality? In this between-subjects study, haptic feedback and non-haptic feedback conditions in which virtual characters bump into the participant who is immersed in a virtual environment are compared. A questionnaire was developed to determine the influence of haptic feedback on presence, embodiment, positive and negative affect, interaction with virtual characters, and haptic feedback realism, among other more exploratory concepts. These exploratory variables include engagement, flow, comfort with virtual characters, comfort with virtual characters’ appearance, realism of virtual character interaction, realism of haptic feedback, and virtual reality sickness. Physiological data was collected using galvanic skin response (GSR) to investigate the influence of haptic feedback on physiological arousal during human-virtual character interaction. Five conditions were developed (no haptic feedback, full and half intensity, incorrect position, and delayed timing). Significant differences were found in embodiment, realism of virtual character interaction, haptic feedback realism, and GSR amplitude after the first interaction with the virtual character. These results may inform future virtual reality studies that investigate haptic feedback during human-virtual character interaction and/or arousal via GSR data, as well as advise studies that seek to correlate self-report responses with physiological data.

Controlling the motion of a prosthetic upper limb without visual feedback is extremely difficult because the wearer does not know the prosthesis' configuration. This paper describes an experiment designed to determine the relative importance of visual and haptic position feedback during targeted force-based motion by non-amputee human subjects as an analogy to prosthetic use. Subjects control the angle of a virtual proxy through an admittance relationship by generating torque at the MCP joint of the right index finger. During successive repetitions of a target acquisition task, the proxy's state is selectively conveyed to the user through graphical display, finger motion, and tactile stimulation. Performance metrics for each feedback condition will provide insights on the role of haptic position feedback and may help guide the development of future upper-limb prostheses

The Simulation-Based Open Surgery Training System (SOSTS) is a virtual reality simulator designed to provide training on a simulated orthopedic bone pinning procedure. The present version of SOSTS offers five distinct combinations of multi-sensory feedback during training. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of visual and haptic feedback on participants' ability to place a pin through a fractured tibia on the simulator. Enhanced visual feedback resulted in a significant reduction of pin alignment error, although participants in these conditions took five times longer to achieve proficiency than those in the moderate visual feedback conditions. Any form of haptic feedback resulted in significantly greater pin placement error than no haptic feedback. The results provide partial support for the proximity compatibility principle for display design.

Minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery requires intensive training due to challenges such as loss of haptic feedback and depth perception. Traditional training methods include box trainers (BT), which offer realistic haptic feedback but lack objective performance assessment, and virtual reality (VR) simulators, which provide automated feedback but lack haptic feedback. This review, conducted at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University, examines the learning outcomes of VRsimulators with haptic feedback compared to BT. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines from December 2023 to April 2024. Research databases, such as PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Web of Science, were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing VR simulators with haptic feedback to BT in training medical students. Seven RCTs met the inclusion criteria, and four were included in the meta-analysis. The primary outcomes were learning curves and learning effectswhile secondary outcomes included skill transfer to a surgical environment. The review analysed data from 125 participants across the studies. Results indicated that BTs demonstrated a superior learning curve, with participants achieving proficiency faster than those using VR. Both simulators showed significant learning effects; however, BTs resulted in greater improvements across more performance parameters. Regarding skill transfer to surgical environments, there was no significant difference between the two groups, suggesting both approaches effectively support surgical skill transfer. Overall, BT has a more effective learning curve and marginally better performance in skill acquisition. While VR with haptic feedback offers enhanced realism, it does not fully replicate the natural haptic feedback provided by BT. Further studies are needed to improve VR haptic feedback and its integration into training programs to enhance learning outcomes.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) impairs motor function and requires rigorous rehabilitative therapy, motivating the development of approaches that are engaging and customizable. Virtual reality (VR) motor training with augmented sensory feedback (ASF) offers a promising pathway to enhance functional outcomes, yet it remains unclear how ASF modalities affect performance and underlying psychophysiological states in persons with SCI. Five participants with chronic incomplete cervical-level SCI controlled a virtual robotic arm with semi-isometric upper-body contractions while undergoing ASF training with either visual feedback (VF) or combined visual plus haptic feedback (VHF). Motor performance (pathlength, completion time), psychophysiological measures (EEG, EMG, EDA, HR), and perceptual ratings (agency, motivation, utility) were assessed before and after ASF training. VF significantly reduced pathlength (−12.5%, p = 0.0011) and lowered EMG amplitude (−32.5%, p = 0.0063), suggesting the potential for improved motor performance and neuromuscular efficiency. VHF did not significantly improve performance, but trended toward higher cortical engagement. EEG analyses showed VF significantly decreased alpha and beta activity after training, whereas VHF trended toward mild increases. Regression revealed improved performance was significantly (p < 0.05) associated with changes in alpha power, EMG, EDA, and self-reported motivation. ASF type may differentially shape performance and psychophysiological responses in SCI participants. These preliminary findings suggest VR-based ASF as a potent multidimensional tool for personalizing rehabilitation.