Redirected touching: The effect of warping space on task performance

Passive haptic feedback in virtual environments is compelling, but changes to virtual objects require changes to associated real objects. Recent work suggests that by leveraging visual dominance, virtual space can be warped to map a variety of virtual objects onto a single real object. However, it is unknown whether users can interact with a warped virtual space as effectively as with an unwarped one. We present a study in which we measured task performance using the Fitts'-law-based ISO 9241-9 multidirectional tapping task. With a few caveats, results suggest that for certain tasks, warped virtual objects are no worse than unwarped virtual objects. We also present preliminary exploratory data on how well people can detect discrepancies due to space-warping.