Introduction

Abstract

Research on high-fidelity visual and audio feedback has dominated the design and development of virtual environments for nearly half a century. Over the last decade the importance of haptic feedback has been recognized and extensive effort has been devoted to haptic interaction research. This book explores haptic feedback in virtual environments based on three different scenarios involving Person-Object (PO), Person-Object-Person (POP) and Person-Person (PP) interactions. The book highlights the interdisciplinary nature of haptic interaction research and reports recent results of psychophysical and behavioral studies along with new technological developments for haptic displays and novel haptic rendering techniques. In this introductory chapter, we provide motivation for this interdisciplinary approach followed by a detailed description of chapters composing this book.