Visuo-haptic Illusions for Motor Skill Acquisition in Virtual Reality

In this article we investigate the potential of using visuo-haptic illusions in Virtual Reality environment to learn motor skills in a real environment. We report on an empirical study where 20 participants perform a multi-object pick-and-place task. The results show that although users do not perform the same motion trajectories in the virtual and real environments, skills acquired in VR augmented with visuo-haptic illusions can be successfully reused in a real environment: There is a high amount of skill transfer (78.5%), similar to the one obtained in an optimal real training environment (82.4%); Finally, participants did not notice the illusion and were enthusiastic about the VR environment. Our findings invite designers and researchers to consider visuo-haptic illusions to help operators to learn motor skills in a cost-effective environment.