A Review of Recent Literature on Audio-Based Pseudo-Haptics

Immersive virtual learning environments (iVLEs), particularly serious games and virtual simulations, typically ignore psychomotor skills development, partly due to the difficulty and cost associated with accurately replicating touch. Simulating touch, also known as haptics, requires specialized haptic devices that are not widely accessible at the consumer-level. Using visual (and/or auditory) cues, pseudo-haptics aims to mimic touch sensations without haptic devices. Although pseudo-haptics has predominantly focused on visual cues, a 2019 review by Collins and Kapralos on pseudo-haptics emphasized the role of auditory cues and cross-modal interactions. Since then, great advancements, notably during the COVID-19 pandemic’s shift to remote learning, have been made. Here, we build upon the work of Collins and Kapralos with a narrative review on audio-based pseudo-haptics. This narrative review explores 17 articles obtained from the Google Scholar, RefSeek, Scopus, and PubMed databases, with the aim of providing a comprehensive summary of the progress in this field since 2019. Pseudo-haptics presents a viable alternative to simulate various aspects of touch, including weight, stiffness, roughness, dampness, force, and glossiness, when haptic devices are unavailable, enhancing immersion and providing the potential to improve psychomotor skill training within iVLEs.