Master's Thesis @ LBU
This project was the culmination of my year at Leeds Beckett University studying for a Masters of Sciences in Music and Sound for Interactive Games. The paper itself is titled "The Impact of Haptic Feedback on Player Engagement and Immersion in Virtual Reality."
You can view it here: Click Here
How It Started
The project began with the simple idea of wanting to interact with haptics more. After previous experiences with virtual reality and haptics at Arizona State University, there was a desire to push the boundaries of video games forward by integrating haptics with audio, but not a clear path on where to take the idea.
At the time that the project was being researched, virtual reality had a lot of recent funding and new projects in the space, so it felt like a good idea to include it. After furthering the research and delving deeper into the topics, the paper "Enhancing Audiovisual Experience with Haptic Feedback: A Survey on HAV" by Danieau et al., (2013) was discovered. This paper expertly defined different categorizations between haptics, audio and visuals, and became foundational to the thesis. If anything, there was potential for this thesis project to expand upon it. As such, the paper was based around the intersection of the three mediums, but more specifically on the interaction between audio and haptics which hadn't really been researched in-depth before.
Thusly, the hypothesis was the following:
1. Does the inclusion of haptics in audiovisual experiences in VR provide increased immersion and/or engagement?
2. If so, does pairing haptic feedback intensity with perceived loudness provide further immersion and/or engagement?
- The hypothesis was split into two parts to establish a control of sorts first, as most studies regarding the effectiveness in haptics were limited in scope or had less-than-convincing results. However, due to some issues that cropped up during the conducting of the thesis itself, only part two of the hypothesis was actually tested.
The study began by gathering all the pieces needed to actually conduct it. The plan was to gather data by testing on human participants, and that meant getting equipment to run it. For the VR headset (and built-in audio) the original plan used the Steam Frame (Steam, 2026), but that ended up getting delayed so far that it was no longer a reasonable option. Instead the device used was the Vive Focus Vision (Vive, 2026), which provided more or less the same experience and accessibility. For haptics it would have been potentially more productive to use something like a full bHaptics Tact Suit (bHaptics, 2026), but that was out of the project's budget so the Tact Sleeves were chosen instead.
- bHaptics' Tact
Sleeves
Then participants were run through a level in the game "BONELAB" (Stress Level Zero, 2022) called Mine Dive, as it offered a simple, controlled experience to gather data from. The game was chosen due to the high fidelity and easy controls, which would likely be a better experience for participants.
- footage of the level,
provided by me
Only five participants showed up even after decently extensive recruiting, which may have been simply due to the lack of people in the area when this test was conducted. When this issue was realized on the tail end of the experimental period allotted, the study was shrunk in scope to only include the second half of the hypothesis, as it was the more important component. Originally, the plan was to have each participant complete the control, followed by an even split of a B test for the first part of the hypothesis and a C test for the second part. Instead, each participant one played the level once, filled out a questionnaire, then played the level again with the added haptics from the Tact Sleeves and completed a second questionnaire. For reference, the Tact Sleeves deliver a vibration whenever certain ranges of frequencies were heard from within the game. Before the tests started, extensive and rigorous work was completed to ensure that the sleeves only picked up a frequency range that triggered not too often to be annoying, but frequently enough to be a key attribute. There was also work done inside of the haptic studio that bHaptics provides to ensure that the vibrations were not too intense for participants, as the motors on the devices were capable of a rather significant amount of vibration. The, these results were analyzed and compared for the final submission. To analyze the data, answers were taken from the Google Form participants filled out and ordered on numerical scales, then simple averages and sums were used to compare them. If the study had received more participants, more complex statistical algorithms could have been used to generate more conclusive results.
Some kind of conclusion was still required though, and I stated while there was a trend towards haptics being more immersive and engaging, the lack of data and the trend being only a difference of about 21% left the results feeling insubstantial. Instead, the focus was shifted to the lessons learned from the actual methodology of the study and how participants reacted to it. Concerns were brought up early on and throughout the project about the problems people face when interacting with virtual reality and the difficulty of conducting a study using it. As such, the conclusion of the major submission reflected things learned about dealing with this issue, as well as the things learned using haptics. Other studies regarding haptics often had engineers constructing their own haptic devices, but my lack of knowledge in this field led me to choose the bHaptics Tact Sleeves, of which was the efficacy was mentioned. While the results of the study may not have been as earth-shattering as I might have hoped, nor is the current market terribly poised to receive it (TechInformed, 2026), many lessons were learned regarding testing procedure and conduct with participants and/or players.
1. bHaptics. (2026). Shop. https://www.bhaptics.com/shop/
2. Danieau, F., Lecuyer, A., Guillotel, P., Fleureau, J., Mollet, N., & Christie, M. (2013). Enhancing Audiovisual Experience with Haptic Feedback: A Survey on HAV. IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 6(2), 193–205. https://doi.org/10.1109/toh.2012.70
3. Steam. (2026). Steam Frame. Welcome to Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe
4. Stress Level Zero. (2022). BONELAB [Video game]. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592190/BONELAB/
5. TechInformed. (2026, January 14). Meta cuts Reality Labs staff and shutters VR studios as it shifts resources toward AI wearables. Breaking News. https://techinformed.com/meta-cuts-reality-labs-staff-and-shutters-vr-studios-as-it-shifts-resources-toward-ai-wearables/
6. Vive. (2024). Vive Focus Vision. https://www.vive.com/uk/product/vive-focus-vision/overview/
Conducting the Tests
Conclusion
Works Cited
