Mentor-Guided Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments: The Impact of Visual and Haptic Feedback on Skill Acquisition

In the early stages of learning a technical skill, trainees require guidance from a mentor through augmented feedback to develop higher expertise. However, the impact of such feedback and the different modalities used to communicate it remain underexplored in immersive virtual environments (IVE). This paper presents a study in which 27 participants were divided into three groups to learn a tool manipulation trajectory in an IVE. Two experimental groups received guidance from an expert using visual and/or haptic augmented feedback, while the control group received no feedback. The results indicate that both experimental groups showed significantly greater improvement in tool trajectory performance than the control group from pre- to post-test, with no significant differences between them. Analysis of their learning curves revealed similar performance improvements in tool trajectory across trials, outperforming the control group. Additionally, the visual-haptic feedback condition was linked to lower task load in three out of six dimensions of the NASA-TLX and a higher perceived interdependence with the expert's actions. These findings suggest that augmented feedback from an expert enhances the learning of tool manipulation skills. Although adding haptic feedback did not lead to better learning outcomes compared to visual feedback alone, it did enhance the overall user experience. These results offer valuable insights for designing IVEs that support mentor-trainee interactions through augmented feedback.