Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization

Fine motor tasks in Virtual Reality (VR) are often constrained by the lack of natural sensory cues, particularly the sense of touch. Previous studies have shown that object characteristics (e.g., shape and size) influence how users perceive and interact with objects. However, the literature lacks in...

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Main Authors: Nour Hatira, Mine Sarac
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11045349/
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author Nour Hatira
Mine Sarac
author_facet Nour Hatira
Mine Sarac
author_sort Nour Hatira
collection DOAJ
description Fine motor tasks in Virtual Reality (VR) are often constrained by the lack of natural sensory cues, particularly the sense of touch. Previous studies have shown that object characteristics (e.g., shape and size) influence how users perceive and interact with objects. However, the literature lacks insight into how these factors affect each other. This study investigates how different haptic feedback modalities and object characteristics influence user performance during fine motor tasks in VR. We conducted a user study with 25 participants as SenseGlove Nova 1 rendered alternative haptic feedback conditions: combined (force and vibration), force-only, vibration-only, and no feedback. Participants grasped and inserted virtual objects of different shapes (cube, cylinder, pentagon, triangle) and sizes (small, medium, large) into a toybox. Our results show that combined feedback consistently led to greater precision, fewer collisions, and an improved manipulation experience, particularly with larger and more complex objects. Object characteristics also significantly influenced performance: medium-sized and simpler-shaped objects created the best results. Additionally, object characteristics also influenced performance, with medium-sized and simpler-shaped objects leading to better performance. Our findings indicate the need to choose haptic feedback modalities based on object-specific characteristics for better user performance and experience.
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spelling doaj-art-4a15b1af222245a894e86bb20f2cac492025-08-20T02:34:55ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-011310834810835810.1109/ACCESS.2025.358178711045349Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object CharacterizationNour Hatira0Mine Sarac1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2814-7587Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, TürkiyeMechatronics Engineering, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, TürkiyeFine motor tasks in Virtual Reality (VR) are often constrained by the lack of natural sensory cues, particularly the sense of touch. Previous studies have shown that object characteristics (e.g., shape and size) influence how users perceive and interact with objects. However, the literature lacks insight into how these factors affect each other. This study investigates how different haptic feedback modalities and object characteristics influence user performance during fine motor tasks in VR. We conducted a user study with 25 participants as SenseGlove Nova 1 rendered alternative haptic feedback conditions: combined (force and vibration), force-only, vibration-only, and no feedback. Participants grasped and inserted virtual objects of different shapes (cube, cylinder, pentagon, triangle) and sizes (small, medium, large) into a toybox. Our results show that combined feedback consistently led to greater precision, fewer collisions, and an improved manipulation experience, particularly with larger and more complex objects. Object characteristics also significantly influenced performance: medium-sized and simpler-shaped objects created the best results. Additionally, object characteristics also influenced performance, with medium-sized and simpler-shaped objects leading to better performance. Our findings indicate the need to choose haptic feedback modalities based on object-specific characteristics for better user performance and experience.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11045349/Haptic feedbackvirtual realityobject sizeobject shapefine motor skills
spellingShingle Nour Hatira
Mine Sarac
Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
IEEE Access
Haptic feedback
virtual reality
object size
object shape
fine motor skills
title Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
title_full Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
title_fullStr Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
title_full_unstemmed Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
title_short Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality: The Impact of Haptic Feedback and Object Characterization
title_sort fine motor tasks in virtual reality the impact of haptic feedback and object characterization
topic Haptic feedback
virtual reality
object size
object shape
fine motor skills
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11045349/
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AT minesarac finemotortasksinvirtualrealitytheimpactofhapticfeedbackandobjectcharacterization