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Abstract
Ergonomic Workplace Assessment aims to assess potential risks and measure the ergonomic characteristics of various workplaces. Virtual reality might offer great benefits as it enables cost-effective workplace evaluations in early planning phases. This study aims to investigate the validity of motion-capture-based ergonomic evaluations in virtual environments (VE) compared to real environments (RE), focusing on the role of passive haptics. In a 3\4 design, 22 subjects performed four work tasks in three environmental conditions: RE, VE, and VE with passive haptic feedback (PH). Whole-body motion data were recorded and analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. Eighteen joint angle percentiles were analyzed across all tasks and environments. Significant differences in trunk and shoulder movements were found between RE and VE, especially during physically demanding tasks such as repetitive lifting. Passive haptics reduced differences in nine task-joint constellations but introduced new ones in seventeen others, particularly shoulder joints. Overall, the results highlight the context-specific effects of passive haptics: while it can improve motion realism in VE, it can also induce task-specific artifacts.