In this work, we investigate the influence of different visualizations on a manipulation task in virtual reality (VR). Without the haptic feedback of the real world, grasping in VR might result in intersections with virtual objects. As people are highly sensitive when it comes to perceiving collisions, it might look more appealing to avoid intersections and visualize non-colliding hand motions. However, correcting the position of the hand or fingers results in a visual-proprioceptive discrepancy and must be used with caution. Furthermore, the lack of haptic feedback in the virtual world might result in slower actions as a user might not know exactly when a grasp has occurred. This reduced performance could be remediated with adequate visual feedback.
In this study, we analyze the performance, level of ownership, and user preference of eight different visual feedback techniques for virtual grasping. Three techniques show the tracked hand (with or without grasping feedback), even if it intersects with the grasped object. Another three techniques display a hand without intersections with the object, called outer hand, simulating the look of a real world interaction. One visualization is a compromise between the two groups, showing both a primary outer hand and a secondary tracked hand. Finally, in the last visualization the hand disappears during the grasping activity.
In an experiment, users perform a pick-and-place task for each feedback technique. We use high fidelity marker-based hand tracking to control the virtual hands in real time. We found that the tracked hand visualizations result in better performance, however, the outer hand visualizations were preferred. We also find indications that ownership is higher with the outer hand visualizations.
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Evaluating Grasping Visualizations and Control Modes in a VR Game
A primary goal of the Virtual Reality ( VR ) community is to build fully immersive and presence-inducing environments with seamless and natural interactions. To reach this goal, researchers are investigating how to best directly use our hands to interact with a virtual environment using hand tracking. Most studies in this field require participants to perform repetitive tasks. In this article, we investigate if results of such studies translate into a real application and game-like experience. We designed a virtual escape room in which participants interact with various objects to gather clues and complete puzzles. In a between-subjects study, we examine the effects of two input modalities (controllers vs. hand tracking) and two grasping visualizations (continuously tracked hands vs. virtual hands that disappear when grasping) on ownership, realism, efficiency, enjoyment, and presence. Our results show that ownership, realism, enjoyment, and presence increased when using hand tracking compared to controllers. Visualizing the tracked hands during grasps leads to higher ratings in one of our ownership questions and one of our enjoyment questions compared to having the virtual hands disappear during grasps as is common in many applications. We also confirm some of the main results of two studies that have a repetitive design in a more realistic gaming scenario that might be closer to a typical user experience.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1652210
- PAR ID:
- 10314326
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ACM Transactions on Applied Perception
- Volume:
- 18
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1544-3558
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)In this work, we investigate the influence that audio and visual feedback have on a manipulation task in virtual reality (VR). Without the tactile feedback of a controller, grasping virtual objects using one’s hands can result in slower interactions because it may be unclear to the user that a grasp has occurred. Providing alternative feedback, such as visual or audio cues, may lead to faster and more precise interactions, but might also affect user preference and perceived ownership of the virtual hands. In this study, we test four feedback conditions for virtual grasping. Three of the conditions provide feedback for when a grasp or release occurs, either visual, audio, or both, and one provides no feedback for these occurrences. We analyze the effect each feedback condition has on interaction performance, measure their effect on the perceived ownership of the virtual hands, and gauge user preference. In an experiment, users perform a pick-and-place task with each feedback condition. We found that audio feedback for grasping is preferred over visual feedback even though it seems to decrease grasping performance, and found that there were little to no differences in ownership between our conditions.more » « less
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Best Paper Award. When estimating the distance or size of an object in the real world, we often use our own body as a metric; this strategy is called body-based scaling. However, object size estimation in a virtual environment presented via a head-mounted display differs from the physical world due to technical limitations such as narrow field of view and low fidelity of the virtual body when compared to one's real body. In this paper, we focus on increasing the fidelity of a participant's body representation in virtual environments with a personalized hand using personalized characteristics and a visually faithful augmented virtuality approach. To investigate the impact of the personalized hand, we compared it against a generic virtual hand and measured effects on virtual body ownership, spatial presence, and object size estimation. Specifically, we asked participants to perform a perceptual matching task that was based on scaling a virtual box on a table in front of them. Our results show that the personalized hand not only increased virtual body ownership and spatial presence, but also supported participants in correctly estimating the size of a virtual object in the proximity of their hand.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3486582
