Researchers at Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy, recruited 162 university students and immersed them in a virtual jewelry museum built in Unity, viewed through an HTC Vive Pro 2 head-mounted display. The setting was chosen deliberately. Italian museums frequently display small, fragile artefacts such as rings, pendants, brooches and coins behind sealed glass, objects visitors can see but never touch. A virtual jewelry museum is therefore an ecologically valid testbed for asking whether haptic feedback and embodied walking genuinely enrich exploration of artefacts that are otherwise off-limits.

Each participant explored the museum under four conditions in a within-subjects, counterbalanced design. In the baseline configuration, they navigated with a controller and manipulated objects with a controller. In the other three, the researchers swapped in SenseGlove Nova haptic gloves, which deliver up to 20 newtons of force feedback to four fingers by braking cables routed along the back of the hand, a KATWalk Mini-S omnidirectional treadmill that lets users walk in place on a low-friction surface held centered by a waist harness, or both devices simultaneously. Finger position was sampled at 60 hertz with sub-millimeter resolution, and every session began with a calibration and familiarization phase so results would reflect settled use rather than initial learning.

The team measured four pillars of user experience after each condition: presence, the sensation of genuinely being inside the virtual world, assessed with the Igroup Presence Questionnaire; usability, scored with the System Usability Scale; cognitive workload, captured repeatedly with the Instantaneous Self-Assessment scale; and cybersickness, tracked with the Fast Motion Sickness scale. Because every participant completed all four configurations, the data were analyzed with linear mixed-effects models that included a random intercept per participant and Bonferroni-corrected p-values across all twelve statistical tests.

The results dismantle the idea that advanced interfaces uniformly enhance the experience. Haptic gloves significantly reduced perceived usability, with a coefficient of minus 3.59 points on the usability scale compared with controllers, and significantly increased cognitive workload, with a coefficient of 0.23 and a medium effect size of Cohen’s d equal to 0.542, the most practically meaningful effect in the study. Treadmill locomotion, by contrast, significantly reduced cognitive workload, with a coefficient of minus 0.36, suggesting that once users adapt, body-based navigation relies on more automatic sensorimotor routines and frees mental resources compared with controller-mediated movement.

The most surprising finding concerned presence. Neither the gloves nor the treadmill shifted presence on its own, but their combination did, and in the wrong direction: participants wearing haptic gloves while walking on the treadmill reported significantly lower perceived presence than in any other configuration, with a significant interaction effect of beta minus 0.17. The researchers interpret this as a possible ‘coupling cost’: when both locomotion and manipulation are physically and attentively demanding at the same time, small inconsistencies in tracking, latency or action-feedback coupling become more salient, eroding the subjective sense of ‘being there’ even though neither device alone moves the needle.

Observations during testing supported the statistics. Participants needed only a brief adaptation to the treadmill before navigating with relative ease, consistent with the workload benefit. The gloves, however, occasionally misaligned tracked hand positions with actual movements, prompting users to consciously monitor and correct their gestures, while the physical bulk of the devices added discomfort and mental strain. Notably, cybersickness remained low across all conditions, with average Fast Motion Sickness scores between roughly 2 and 3 on a 0-to-20 scale, and neither device, alone or combined, significantly changed sickness levels, though the authors caution that a floor effect may have limited sensitivity here.

The practical implications for museum designers are concrete. Force-feedback gloves should not be treated as a default upgrade; they make sense mainly when tactile manipulation of small or fragile artefacts is the core of the experience, and only with adequate onboarding, calibration support and simplified interaction gestures. Treadmill locomotion can meaningfully ease the cognitive burden of navigation and suits installations where embodied exploration is central, but its space, cost, safety and accessibility demands make it more appropriate for supervised, high-end deployments than everyday museum floors. For novice visitors, controller-based interaction and navigation remain the most robust baseline, and locomotion and manipulation should be co-designed rather than bolted together independently.

The broader message reaches beyond cultural heritage. This study, published in Multimedia Tools and Applications, is among the first to systematically test the individual and combined effects of haptic gloves and treadmill locomotion within a single experimental protocol, showing that findings from studying devices in isolation do not automatically transfer to combined high-embodiment configurations. The relationship between immersion and experience quality appears non-linear: accurate hand tracking, fluid gesture execution and low interaction overhead may matter more to visitors than haptic realism itself. As museums and other industries weigh investments in ever-more-embodied VR, the evidence suggests the right question is not how much immersion can be added, but which trade-offs in usability, mental effort and comfort each addition actually buys.

Subject of Research: The individual and combined effects of haptic gloves and VR treadmill locomotion on presence, usability, cognitive workload and cybersickness in virtual museum experiences

Article Title: More immersion, better experience? The trade-offs of haptic gloves and treadmill locomotion in virtual museums

Article References: Agostinelli, T., Gambelli Fenili, E., & Mengoni, M. (2026). More immersion, better experience? The trade-offs of haptic gloves and treadmill locomotion in virtual museums. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 85(9), Article 754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-026-21911-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11042-026-21911-5

Keywords: virtual reality, haptic gloves, VR treadmill, virtual museums, presence, usability, cognitive workload, cybersickness, cultural heritage, user experience, immersive technology, locomotion

The pioneering study was spearheaded by Professor Keehoon Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH, alongside graduate researcher Joonsub Byun. Their collaborative effort included prominent figures such as Professors Yong-An Chung and Hyeonseok Jeong from the Catholic University of Korea and Dr. Jooyeon Kim of the Korea Basic Science Institute. This multidisciplinary team’s findings appeared in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE, marking a significant advance in immersive technology research.

Virtual reality has long been heralded for its capacity to revolutionize sectors like healthcare, education, gaming, and professional training. Yet, a persistent scientific challenge has been the objective quantification of immersion depth within virtual environments. Historically, the level of user engagement and realism has been gauged predominantly through subjective self-reporting methods, such as questionnaires probing how “real” or engrossing the experience felt. These approaches, however, lack the empirical rigor necessary for deeper understanding or technological refinement.

To break free from this limitation, the researchers sought to directly capture neural correlates of immersion by observing brain responses in real-time. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), with its high spatial resolution and non-invasive monitoring capabilities, presented the ideal tool to gather this data. However, a formidable technical obstacle arose: conventional haptic devices, reliant on metallic actuators and electronic components, are incompatible with MRI environments due to the latter’s intense magnetic fields that pose both operational risks and imaging artifacts.

Addressing this, the POSTECH team engineered an innovative pneumatic multi-finger haptic display, uniquely powered entirely by air pressure. This device eschews all metal-based parts, relying solely on non-magnetic materials, thereby permitting safe and interference-free operation within the MRI scanner. Remarkably, it delivers independent, simultaneous tactile stimulation to four fingers, replicating nuanced touch experiences crucial for heightened immersion during VR interactions.

Using this cutting-edge apparatus, the researchers conducted meticulous experiments on a state-of-the-art 3 Tesla (3T) fMRI machine, which offers exceptional neural imaging precision, doubling the magnetic field strength of standard clinical MRI scanners. Participants donned the pneumatic haptic glove while being subjected to VR environments both with and without tactile feedback. This methodical comparison illuminated striking differences in brain activity, elucidating how sensory integration unfolds during these immersive experiences.

Results revealed that tactile stimulation does not merely activate somatosensory cortex regions associated with touch. Rather, it induces widespread augmentation of neural dynamics, engaging brain areas responsible for motor planning, attentional control, and higher-order cognitive processing. Most notably, when tactile feedback was delivered in flawless temporal synchrony with visual and auditory cues, the brain’s response intensified dramatically. This temporal alignment appears fundamental to the brain’s acceptance of virtual stimuli as authentic percepts, underscoring multisensory integration as a cornerstone of immersion.

The implications of these findings reverberate far beyond entertainment technologies. From a clinical perspective, the ability to objectively measure VR immersion through brain data heralds transformative possibilities in surgical simulation training, where tactile feedback fidelity is paramount. Furthermore, it opens doors to quantitatively assessing VR therapies used in pain relief, treatment of phobias, and neurological rehabilitation, offering clinicians a powerful window into patient engagement and therapeutic efficacy.

Additionally, this breakthrough may catalyze advancements in remote robotic surgery, where haptic feedback can enhance precision and surgeon confidence. Immersive educational platforms stand to gain as well by grounding virtual learning experiences in truly multisensory realities, thereby improving knowledge retention and skill acquisition. Lastly, the platform could establish standardized neural benchmarks for VR content evaluation, facilitating the development of more compelling, scientifically validated experiences.

Professor Keehoon Kim emphasized, “Tactile sensation at the fingertips is indispensable for genuine immersion in virtual reality, complementing visual and auditory inputs. This study represents a critical leap forward by introducing a new framework capable of quantitatively analyzing VR experiences through objective brain activity measurements rather than subjective accounts.” This underscores the study’s fusion of engineering prowess and neuroscience to reimagine the future of virtual interaction.

The research initiative received generous support from multiple sources, including the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Technology R&D Project for Dental and Medical Technologies, the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Mid-Career Researcher Program and Outstanding Young Researcher Program, as well as backing from POSCO Holdings. This intersectoral collaboration highlights the rapidly evolving landscape of VR research at the intersection of technology, medicine, and cognitive science.

In summary, this groundbreaking work by the POSTECH team not only provides a sophisticated tool for decoding the brain’s multisensory response to virtual reality but also sets a new standard for immersion assessment. By bridging the sensory gap with innovative pneumatic haptics compatible with fMRI and illuminating the neural signatures of synchronized sensory integration, their research elevates our understanding of what it truly means to “feel” digital worlds. As VR continues to shape myriad facets of human experience, such empirical insights will be pivotal in steering its evolution from simulated illusion to near-real perception.

Subject of Research: Multisensory integration and immersion in virtual reality, neural correlates of tactile feedback using fMRI-compatible haptic devices.

Article Title: Exploring immersion through a fMRI-compatible multi-finger handheld haptic display

News Publication Date: 27-Mar-2026

Web References:
10.1371/journal.pone.0343297

Image Credits: POSTECH

Keywords

Virtual reality, fMRI, haptic feedback, multisensory integration, brain activity, pneumatic haptic display, immersive technology, neuroscience, tactile sensation, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neural correlates, sensory perception