Impact of Visual-Haptic Spatial Discrepancy on Targeting Performance

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive study of the impact of visual-haptic spatial discrepancies on human performance in a targeting task conducted in a visual-haptic virtual and augmented environment. Moreover, it explores whether the impact of this effect varies with two additional variables: 1) haptic wall stiffness and 2) visual cursor diameter. Finally, we discuss the relative dominance of visual and haptic cues during a targeting task. The results indicate that while the spatial discrepancies studied exerted a small effect on the time required to perform targeting, they impacted the absolute errors considerably. Additionally, we report that haptic wall stiffness has a significant effect on absolute errors while the visual cursor diameter has a significant effect on movement time. Finally, we conclude that while both visual and haptic cues are important during targeting tasks, haptic cues played a more dominant role than visual cues. The results of this paper can be used to predict how human targeting performance will vary between systems, such as those using haptically enabled virtual reality or augmented reality technologies that feature visual-haptic spatial discrepancies.