An Experimental Study of Performance and Presence

Based on a distributed architecture for real-time collection and broadcast of haptic information to multiple participants, heterogeneous haptic devices (the PHANToM and the CyberGrasp) were used in an experiment to test the performance accuracy and sense of presence of participants engaged in a task involving mutual touch. In the experiment, the hands of CyberGrasp users were modeled for the computer to which the PHANToM was connected. PHANToM users were requested to touch the virtual hands of CyberGrasp users to transmit randomly ordered letters of the alphabet using a pre-set coding system. Performance accuracy achieved by a small sample of participants was less than optimal in the strict sense: accurate detection of intended location and frequency of touch combined ranged from .27 to .42. However, participants accurately detected the intended location of touch in 92% of the cases. Accuracy may be positively related to pairwise sense of co-presence and negatively related to mean force, force variability, and task completion time.