Abstract
We investigated two pseudo-haptic feedback techniques for virtual reality (VR) strength training aimed at modulating perceived weight and cognitive fatigue. Both methods visually amplified the motion of a real dumbbell relative to users’ physical movement: a nonlinear transformation that preserved spatial alignment at the start and end of each motion, and a constant gain that uniformly scaled displacement without endpoint consistency. Experimental results showed that the constant gain approach led to greater reductions in perceived weight compared to the nonlinear method, particularly during the early stages of training, while the nonlinear method had only marginal effects. The constant gain technique also reduced subjective fatigue in early sets, but this effect was less apparent in later stages of training. No significant differences in motivation were observed across conditions, indicating that visual feedback primarily influenced immediate perceptual responses such as perceived weight and fatigue.
Keywords
Pseudo-haptics; Strength training; Perceived weight; Virtual reality
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.915
Citation
Ichida, R., Tanaka, Y.,and Yoshida, N.(2025) A Pseudo-Haptic Approach to Alleviate Cognitive Fatigue in Virtual Reality Strength Training, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.915
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 9 - Healthcare Design
A Pseudo-Haptic Approach to Alleviate Cognitive Fatigue in Virtual Reality Strength Training
We investigated two pseudo-haptic feedback techniques for virtual reality (VR) strength training aimed at modulating perceived weight and cognitive fatigue. Both methods visually amplified the motion of a real dumbbell relative to users’ physical movement: a nonlinear transformation that preserved spatial alignment at the start and end of each motion, and a constant gain that uniformly scaled displacement without endpoint consistency. Experimental results showed that the constant gain approach led to greater reductions in perceived weight compared to the nonlinear method, particularly during the early stages of training, while the nonlinear method had only marginal effects. The constant gain technique also reduced subjective fatigue in early sets, but this effect was less apparent in later stages of training. No significant differences in motivation were observed across conditions, indicating that visual feedback primarily influenced immediate perceptual responses such as perceived weight and fatigue.