• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.125-132
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• 2024

Recently, with immersive virtual reality(IVR) technologies, various services such as education, training, entertainment, industry, healthcare and remote collaboration have been applied. In particular, researches are actively being studied to visualize and interact with virtual humans, research on virtual pets in IVR is also emerging. For interaction with the virtual pet, similar to real-world interaction scenarios, the most important thing is to provide physical contact such as haptic and non-verbal interaction(e.g., gesture). This paper investigates the effects on factors (e.g., shape and texture) of passive haptic feedbacks using mapping physical props corresponding to the virtual pet. Experimental results show significant differences in terms of immersion, co-presence, realism, and friendliness depending on the levels of texture elements when interacting with virtual pets by passive haptic feedback. Additionally, as the main findings of this study by statistical interaction between two variables, we found that there was Uncanny valley effect in terms of friendliness. With our results, we will expect to be able to provide guidelines for creating interactive contents with the virtual pet in immersive VR environments.