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

Fine motor tasks become more challenging in Virtual Reality (VR) due to the different characteristics of objects (shape and size) and the absence of natural sensory cues, particularly the sense of touch. However, the literature lacks insight into how these factors affect each other. In this study, we investigate the impact of different haptic feedback modalities and object characteristics (size and shape) during fine motor tasks in VR. We conducted a user study with 25 participants using SenseGlove Nova 1 to render haptic feedback while grasping virtual objects of varying shapes (cube, cylinder, pentagon, triangle) and sizes (big, medium, small) to insert them into a toybox. In the meantime, the haptic glove could offer four different haptic feedback modalities: combined (force and vibration), force-only, vibration-only, and no feedback. Our results show that combined feedback consistently outperformed other feedback modalities regarding precision, reduced collisions, and a better manipulation experience overall, particularly for larger and more complex objects. Object characteristics also influenced performance, with simpler shapes and medium-sized objects yielding the best results. Our findings indicate the need to choose haptic feedback modalities based on object-specific characteristics for better user performance and experience.