Please note: This PhD seminar will take place online.
Junhyeok Kim, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisors: Professors Mark Hancock, Daniel Vogel
Spatial design in virtual reality (VR) requires interacting with objects across various scales, yet the perceptual limits of retargeting physical proxies to variable virtual scales remain underexplored. This study investigates the tolerance of visual-proprioceptive scale mismatch in a tangible world-in-miniature (WiM) environment. Participants performed docking and scale estimation tasks in a within-participants factorial design. Our findings reveal that motor control was driven primarily by the visual dominance (𝑝 < .001), but with a functional performance floor at 3% of full scale (≈ 20mm). While participants maintained high functional performance despite the mismatches, we identified a directional asymmetry in perceived discrepancy: participants tolerated ‘positive mismatch’ (holding a smaller proxy) but rejected ‘negative mismatch’ (holding a larger proxy). We synthesize these findings into a visual-haptic loop model and provide concrete design guidelines for scalable tangible WiM, recommending a bias toward smaller proxies to optimize both performance and user acceptance.