Comparing Auditory and Haptic Feedback for a Virtual Drilling Task

While visual feedback is dominant in Virtual Environments, the use of other modalities like haptics and acoustics can enhance believability, immersion, and interaction performance. Haptic feedback is especially helpful for many interaction tasks like working with medical or precision tools. However, unlike visual and auditory feedback, haptic reproduction is often difficult to achieve due to hardware limitations. This article describes a user study to examine how auditory feedback can be used to substitute haptic feedback when interacting with a vibrating tool. Participants remove some target material with a round-headed drill while avoiding damage to the underlying surface. In the experiment, varying combinations of surface force feedback, vibration feedback, and auditory feedback are used. We describe the design of the user study and present the results, which show that auditory feedback can compensate the lack of haptic feedback.