Estimating the Just Noticeable Difference of Tactile Feedback in Oculus Quest 2 Controllers

In virtual reality (VR) applications, humans experience the provided content not only through the visual and auditory systems but also through the somatosensory system. Thus, we decided to conduct a VR study to further explore the just noticeable difference (JND) of tactile feedback to understand humans’ perceptions of tactile stimuli. Our VR study examined the JND in terms of the intensity, duration, and frequency of tactile feedback provided through commercially available vibrotactile motion controllers, the Oculus Quest 2 controllers. We instructed participants to report whether they perceived a difference between a reference (variation) and a testing stimulus at each point in the experiment for a different property (intensity, duration, and frequency) of tactile feedback. We report both positive and negative JND values for the three properties of tactile feedback. We discuss our findings and limitations and provide directions for future studies regarding tactile perception for commercially available tactile feedback devices.