Influence of physical tool attributes on presence in virtual learning environments

Virtual reality offers new opportunities in production education and training. The simulation of haptic perception is, however, still an ongoing topic of research. This paper describes the development of a simple tool replica to simulate different hand-held tools out of the production. Different attributes like shape, weight and functionality of the replica are changed during a user study with 20 participants. The task within the virtual environment contains a simple screw driving scenario. The test runs compared on the resulting sense of presence, since it has already be shown that presence has an impact on the learning success. The results show significant effects especially in the subscale of experienced realism. The greatest effects are measured with all attributes integrated. However, an additional integration of a single attribute like realistic weight or functionality does not necessary lead to a significant increasing sense of presence.