Touch & talk: contextualizing remote touch for affective interaction

Touch is a unique channel in affect conveyance. A significant aspect of this uniqueness is that the relation of touch to affect is immediate, without the need for symbolic encoding and decoding. However, most pioneering research work in developing remote touch technologies, result in the use of touch as a symbolic channel either by design or user decision. We present a review of relevant psychological and sociological literature of touch and propose a model of immediacy of the touch channel for conveyance of affect. We posit that the strategic provision of contextualizing channels will liberate touch to assume its role in affect conveyance. Armed with this analysis, we propose two design guidelines: first, the touch channel needs to be coupled with other communication channels to clarify its meaning; second, encourage the use touch as an immediate channel by not assigning any symbolic meaning to touch interactions. We proceed to describe our haptic interface design based on these guidelines. Our in-lab experiment shows that remote touch reinforces the meaning of a symbolic channel reducing sadness significantly and showing a trend to reduce general negative mood and to reinforce joviality.

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