  As robot teleoperation increasingly becomes integral in executing tasks in
distant, hazardous, or inaccessible environments, the challenge of operational
delays remains a significant obstacle. These delays are inherent in signal
transmission and processing and can adversely affect the operators performance,
particularly in tasks requiring precision and timeliness. While current
research has made strides in mitigating these delays through advanced control
strategies and training methods, a crucial gap persists in understanding the
neurofunctional impacts of these delays and the efficacy of countermeasures
from a cognitive perspective. Our study narrows this gap by leveraging
functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine the neurofunctional
implications of simulated haptic feedback on cognitive activity and motor
coordination under delayed conditions. In a human-subject experiment (N=41), we
manipulated sensory feedback to observe its influences on various brain regions
of interest (ROIs) response during teleoperation tasks. The fNIRS data provided
a detailed assessment of cerebral activity, particularly in ROIs implicated in
time perception and the execution of precise movements. Our results reveal that
certain conditions, which provided immediate simulated haptic feedback,
significantly optimized neural functions related to time perception and motor
coordination, and improved motor performance. These findings provide empirical
evidence about the neurofunctional basis of the enhanced motor performance with
simulated synthetic force feedback in the presence of teleoperation delays.
