Experimental investigation of the relationship between subjective telepresence and performance in hand-eye tasks

In this quantitative investigation of telepresence human test subjects performed a 2 dof manual task, similar to a Fitts task, and then responded to questions about the experience after each trial. The task involved using a position input device to manipulate a virtual object on a computer screen. The experimental arrangement made it possible to modify the relationship between what the subject's hand did and what his/her eyes saw. Three different control/sensory transformations were investigated: time delay, rotation, and linear scaling. The subject's responses were used as the basis for measuring the degree of subjective telepresence (equal to the probability that the human operator will detect the transformation). Subjects also made a direct subjective rating of the transformation in one experiment. Task time served as the measure of task performance. No general relationship between subjective telepresence and task performance was discovered.