Perceived Weight of Mediated Reality Sticks

2025-09-30

AI Summary

This study investigates how visual deformations in augmented reality (AR) and diminished reality (DR) affect perceptual judgments of object weight and center of mass (CoM). Using dynamic touch paradigms, participants manipulated physical rods whose geometry was virtually altered—either stretched in length or rendered with a missing central segment—and reported perceived weight and CoM location. Two user studies (N=10 each) revealed: (1) visual elongation significantly reduced perceived weight; (2) despite central occlusion, objects were consistently perceived as continuous wholes; and (3) we derived the first empirically grounded moment-of-inertia model based on reported CoM, demonstrating a robust negative correlation between this metric and perceived weight. This work establishes, for the first time, a quantitative cross-modal relationship between visual–haptic inertia perception and weight judgment—providing both theoretical foundations and empirical evidence to guide physically consistent design in mixed reality systems.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Computer Vision: Low Level & Physics-based Vision

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization

Abstract

Mediated reality, where augmented reality (AR) and diminished reality (DR) meet, enables visual modifications to real-world objects. A physical object with a mediated reality visual change retains its original physical properties. However, it is perceived differently from the original when interacted with. We present such a mediated reality object, a stick with different lengths or a stick with a missing portion in the middle, to investigate how users perceive its weight and center of gravity. We conducted two user studies (N=10), each of which consisted of two substudies. We found that the length of mediated reality sticks influences the perceived weight. A longer stick is perceived as lighter, and vice versa. The stick with a missing portion tends to be recognized as one continuous stick. Thus, its weight and center of gravity (COG) remain the same. We formulated the relationship between inertia based on the reported COG and perceived weight in the context of dynamic touch.

Problem

• Investigating how mediated reality affects perceived weight of sticks
• Examining center of gravity perception in visually modified reality objects
• Analyzing length and missing portions impact on weight perception

Innovation

• Mediated reality modifies visual object properties
• User studies measure perceived weight changes
• Dynamic touch links inertia to weight perception