Virtual Muscle Force: Communicating Kinesthetic Forces Through Pseudo-Haptic Feedback and Muscle Input

Natural haptic feedback in virtual reality (VR) is complex andchallenging, due to the intricacy of necessary stimuli and re-spective hardware. Pseudo-haptic feedback aims at providinghaptic feedback without providing actual haptic stimuli butby using other sensory channels (e.g. visual cues) for feed-back. We combine such an approach with the additional inputmodality of muscle activity that is mapped to a virtual force toinfluence the interaction flow. In comparison to existing approaches as well as to no kines-thetic feedback at all the presented solution significantly in-creased immersion, enjoyment as well as the perceived qualityof kinesthetic feedback.