Design and Evaluation of Pseudo-Haptic Techniques for Simulating Surface Stickiness in VR

Pseudo-haptics alters vision to evoke haptic perception without dedicated hardware. We introduce a method that reproduces sticky-surface interactions during attaching-detaching 3D direct manipulation in VR by blending three cues—motion gain, surfacedeformation, and vibration—in various combinations. Accurately sensing how strongly a surface “clings” is vital for realistic grasping, adhesion training and material evaluation, yet it has been largely overlooked in pseudo-haptic research. Three studies evaluated these cues. The first experiment compared individual and combined cues on perceived stickiness, confirming that additional cues reliably strengthened perceived stickiness. The second experiment tested how cue number affects tolerance for visual-physical mismatch, indicating that they lowered the minimum detectable threshold though they did not widen the overall tolerated mismatch. The third experiment measured whether and how much added cues sharpen perceptual resolution, showing multiple cues improved perceptual resolution by reducing just noticeable differences by 44 % ($1.8 \times$ finer), doubling discriminable levels from roughly eight with a single cue to sixteen with all cues.