Effect of Handshake in VR Environment via Robotic Arm on Psychological Distance

The COVID-19 pandemic has popularized telework using video chat tools. Although video chat tools allow people to communicate each other in remote locations, psychological distance is longer than face-to-face communication, which may lead to a lack of intimacy. Previous studies have shown that interfaces combining video chat, VR, and robots with handshakes can improve the sense of closeness. However, few studies have focused on the sense of closeness in interfaces combining VR and robots. In this study, we proposed a multimodal interface combining VR and a robotic arm and verified whether shaking hands with a remote partner in VR could shorten the psychological distance compared to video chat. The results showed that the psychological distance was predominantly shorter in VR communication than in video chat communication; however, a handshake using robotic arm did not shorten the psychological distance compared to a handshake without a robotic arm. These results indicate that spatial distance is shorter in VR than in video chat and that robotic arms must be made more human-like.