Discrepancies Between Felt and Judged Presence: The Role of Touch on Presence in Virtual Reality

Vision is well documented as the dominant sense in Virtual Reality (VR), yet the role of touchin the "Sense of Object Presence" (SOOP) remains under-explored. This study investigatedthe relative importance of unisensory (touch, vision) and multisensory information on SOOPusing novel mid-air haptics (ultrasound) to provide tactile feedback without physical contactin a virtual environment. Forty-four participants completed two counterbalanced experimentalblocks: an implicit reaction-time task (reacting to target stimuli) and an explicit metacognitivetask (rating confidence in object presence). Participants were placed in a lifelike virtualenvironment where they were moving along railway tracks in a cavern in a minecart, andthey intermittently felt and saw objects on their outstretched right hand. We manipulatedsensory modality (Unisensory vs Multisensory) and temporal order (e.g., touch-first vs.vision-first) to assess their impact on presence. Results indicated that multisensoryintegration significantly enhanced perceptual confidence and reaction speeds compared tounisensory conditions. However, A key dissociation emerged between unisensorymodalities. While participants reacted significantly faster to visual stimuli, they achievedhigher perceptual accuracy with touch. Furthermore, although faster reaction timescorrelated with general presence scores, participants retrospectively rated touch as feelingsignificantly more "real" than vision. These findings highlight a potential disconnect betweenreal-time "felt" presence and retrospective "judged" presence.