Correlation Between Perceived Social Presence and Perceived Animacy Induced by Haptic Stimuli

Social presence is known to enhance user engagement and task performance in computer-mediated communication. One approach to increasing social presence involves the use of haptic stimuli during interactions with mediated others. However, previous studies have primarily focused on binary comparisons between the presence and absence of haptic stimuli, without fully investigating which specific elements of haptic feedback contribute to social presence or identifying its key predictors to enable more detailed relationship modeling. Building on research in cognitive psychology on animacy perception, this study hypothesizes that animacy perceived through haptic stimuli serves as a predictor of perceived social presence. To test this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment using 12 different haptic stimulation patterns designed to evoke varying degrees of animacy and analyzed the correlation between perceived animacy and social presence. The results indicate a significant positive correlation between animacy perceived through haptic stimuli and perceived social presence, with haptic stimulus frequency playing a important role in shaping the degrees of perceived social presence. These findings provide a foundation for modeling the relationship between haptic stimuli and social presence and are expected to inform the design of user interfaces for remote communication and interactions with virtual agents.