Position Paper: Factors of Perceived Tactile Cue Dominance when Interacting with Moving Virtual Objects

Prior work has shown that visual cues are more dominant than tactile cues for static objects. When texture and material properties are added, the reverse is true. However, it is not well understood which cues play a role in perceiving these textures when objects are moving. In this paper, we present an evaluation investigating speed and angular direction mismatch between visual and tactile information while objects are moving. Our results show that when objects are stationary or moving slowly, the sense of touch dominates visual cues; but as the speed increases, visual cues dominate tactile cues. When tactile and visual cues were not matching for moving virtual objects, visual cues were more dominant when the virtual objects moved at angles less than 30 degrees different than the tactile feedback in either direction. Therefore, potentially a 1D directional haptic device with physical texture substitutions may be able to convey sufficient realism when touching virtual objects that are moving faster than 4-8cm/s and with a difference in angular direction of 30 degrees or less. In this paper, we also present the limitations of this work and outline a research agenda for future investigation of visual and tactile cue dominance for perceiving textures of virtual objects moving in a virtual environment.