ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Emotion Science
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1560157
This article is part of the Research TopicHow Do Affective Stimuli Impact Actions? Unveiling the Relationship Between Emotional Stimuli and Motor BehaviorView all 12 articles
Haptic feedback as affective amplifier: enhanced fear perception affects cognitive performance and avoidance actions in VR height exposure
Provisionally accepted
Lin Cong*
Shan Cheng
Chaolin Teng
Kaiwen XiongMeiqing HuangJin MaWendong HuJianqi WangWeitao DangKewei Sun*Taihui Zhang*- Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China
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Haptic feedback serves as a potent affective amplifier in virtual reality (VR), intensifying threat perception to influence emotional intensity. This study investigated how haptic-enhanced fear stimuli (delivered through platform shaking during VR height exposure) impair cognitive performance and avoidance actions. Twenty male participants with self-reported fear of heights were subjected to four emotion-inducing conditions: neutrality, ground, stationary, and shaking, with each condition separated by one week. We have multimodal assessed of physiological (EEG, peripheral physiological arousal), behavioral (movement distance, eye movement), and cognitive performance (nine-light task accuracy rates and reaction time) during fear induction.Results revealed significant declines in task accuracy and prolonged reaction times during the shaking condition, indicating resource competition where threat processing impaired goal-directed motor execution. The decreased movement distance and increased pupil dilation indicated the initiation of an automatic defense response. Furthermore, physiological markers confirmed amplified this threat processing. The increased heart rate and elevated β band activity in EEG, indicating heightened cortical engagement with fear stimuli. The integration of physiological, behavioral, and subjective measures provides a mechanistic model for affective-motor competition, demonstrating how somatic threat cues translate into altered actions.
Keywords: Fear, Haptic Feedback, avoidance behavior, EEG, virtual reality, threat perception
Received: 14 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cong, Cheng, Teng, Xiong, Huang, Ma, Hu, Wang, Dang, Sun and Zhang. 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:
Lin Cong, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China
Kewei Sun, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China
Taihui Zhang, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China
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