Touching the Virtual Dog: Effects of Active and Passive Haptic Feedback on Social Bonding and Presence in VR Pet Interaction

Immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) enable people to own and interact with virtual pets, offering an alternative for those who are unable to care for real pets due to spatial, physical, or financial constraints. However, how users form social bonds and emotional connections with virtual pets remains unclear and underexplored. Most virtual pet systems rely primarily on visual and auditory cues, overlooking one critical modality for emotional bonding�touch. Touch plays a fundamental role in emotional communication and social presence, particularly in human-animal interactions. Haptic feedback can fill the role of providing touch cues for users of virtual pet systems. This paper investigates how different haptic feedback modalities can influence emotional communication between users and virtual pets. We compare active haptic feedback�more specifically vibrotactile feedback�delivered through haptic gloves that respond to user interactions with a virtual dog, and passive haptic feedback, provided through a physical plush toy dog that represents the dog's body in physical space. In a within-subjects study with 32 participants, results revealed that passive haptic feedback significantly enhanced emotional bonding, social presence, and perceptions of realism, while active vibrotactile feedback contributed meaningfully in the absence of passive cues, especially in increasing behavioral engagement. These findings offer valuable design insights for emotionally resonant virtual pet systems, suggesting that passive haptics anchor affective realism, while active vibrotactile haptics enhance interactivity and compensate for reduced physical embodiment in immersive environments.