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Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) incorporating tangibles are becoming more accessible. The success of applications combining 3D printed tangibles and VR often depends on how accurately size is perceived. Research has shown that visuo-haptic perceptual information is important in the perception of size. However, it is unclear how these sensory-perceptual channels are affected by immersive virtual environments that incorporate tangible objects. Towards understanding the effects of different sensory information channels in the near field size perception of tangibles of graspable sizes in IVEs, we conducted a between-subjects study evaluating the accuracy of size perception across three experimental conditions (Vision-only, Haptics-only, Vision and Haptics). We found that overall, participants consistently over-estimated the size of the dials regardless of the type of perceptual information that was presented. Participants in the haptics only condition overestimated diameters to a larger degree as compared to other conditions. Participants were most accurate in the vision only condition and least accurate in the haptics only condition. Our results also revealed that increased efficiency in reporting size over time was most pronounced in the visuo- haptic condition. 

In this study, we empirically evaluated the effects of presentation method and simulation fidelity on task performance and psychomotor skills acquisition in an immersive bimanual simulation towards precision metrology education. In a 2 × 2 experiment design, we investigated a large-screen immersive display (LSID) with a head-mounted display (HMD), and the presence versus absence of gravity. Advantages of the HMD include interacting with the simulation in a more natural manner as compared to using a large-screen immersive display due to the similarities between the interactions afforded in the virtual compared to the real-world task. Suspending the laws of physics may have an effect on usability and in turn could affect learning outcomes. Our dependent variables consisted of a pre and post cognition questionnaire, quantitative performance measures, perceived workload and system usefulness, and a psychomotor assessment to measure to what extent transfer of learning took place from the virtual to the real world. Results indicate that the HMD condition was preferable to the immersive display in several metrics while the no-gravity condition resulted in users adopting strategies that were not advantageous for task performance.