Haptic Communication for a 2-D Pointing Task in a Virtual Environment

This paper examines the properties of haptic communication between two human operators using kinesthetic haptic devices in a collaborative task in a virtual environment. Twenty subjects, divided into 10 dyads, participated in a 2D pointing task. Each dyad consisted of a supervisor and an acting agent. The supervisor’s role was to guide the acting agent towards a target in the virtual environment through either verbal or haptic communication only. Verbal communication was found to be the most efficient means of communication, but collaboration was also effective using haptic communication. Several different haptic communication strategies were observed, all with equal effectiveness as measured by task completion time. These strategies followed the same pattern as the verbal strategies. These results suggest that haptic communication in a virtual environment is possible, allowing for future designs of haptically enhanced collaborative work in virtual environments.