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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Comput. Sci.
Sec. Human-Media Interaction
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomp.2025.1511928
This article is part of the Research Topic Cutting-Edge Technologies for Multi-Sensory Research at the Frontier Between Disciplines View all articles

Sense of agency in gesture-based interactions is modulated by sensory modality but not feedback meaning

Provisionally accepted
George Evangelou George Evangelou 1*Orestis Georgiou Orestis Georgiou 2Eddie Brown Eddie Brown 2James W Moore James W Moore 1
  • 1 Goldsmiths University of London, London, United Kingdom
  • 2 Ultraleap Ltd., Bristol, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Gesture-based interactions provide control over a system without the need for physical contact. Midair haptic technology allows the user to not visually engage with the interface while receiving system information and is readily manipulable, which has positive implications for automotive environments. It is important, however, that the user still feels a sense of agency, which here refers to perceiving system changes as caused by their gesture. In the current study, 36 participants engaged in an experimental time perception task with an automotive themed infotainment menu, serving as an implicit quantitative measure of agency. This was supplemented with additional self-reported measures. They selected different icons via gesture poses, with sensory feedback either visually or haptically. As well as sensory modality, feedback was also the same for each icon, arbitrarily different or carried semantic information. Mid-air haptics increased agency compared to visual, and this did not vary as function of feedback meaning. Agency was also associated with general measures of trust and usability. Our findings have positive implications for mid-air haptics in automotive contexts and note general importance of user agency.

    Keywords: agency, Gesture, sensory, modality, haptics, visual, feedback. (Min.5-Max. 8

    Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Evangelou, Georgiou, Brown and Moore. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: George Evangelou, Goldsmiths University of London, London, United Kingdom

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