Let's Play Catch in Words: Online Negotiation System with a Sense of Presence Based on Haptic Interaction

In recent development of online negotiation systems, the dynamic animation display has become a familiar approach for conveying nonverbal information and emotions. Yet the lack of presence caused by just looking at remains unsolved. In this study, we bring the haptic technology into the system and realize throwing a ball in a 3D virtual environment by PHANToM haptic device in order to represent making statements in turns. In this system, subjects can express their emotions by changing the ball’s color and radius. We conduct four types of observational comparison experiments to verify the effect that the haptic interaction brings about. Results from the experiments illustrate that online negotiation involving haptic interaction can increase the sense of presence, especially in text input negotiation, the difference is significant.