Mediated social touch: a review of current research and future directions

Haans, Antal; IJsselsteijn, Wijnand A.

doi:10.1007/s10055-005-0014-2

Cited by 240 publications

(210 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

185

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although it appears that mediated social touch can indeed to some extent convey emotions ) and induce pro-social behavior [e.g., the Midas effect; Haans and IJsselsteijn (2009a)], it is still not known to what extent it can also elicit strong affective experiences (Haans and IJsselsteijn 2006) and how this all compares to real touch or other control conditions.…”

Section: Controlled Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Touch in Humanâ€“Computer Interaction

Erp

Toet²

2015

Front. Digit. Humanit.

143

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Touch is our primary non-verbal communication channel for conveying intimate emotions and as such essential for our physical and emotional wellbeing. In our digital age, human social interaction is often mediated. However, even though there is increasing evidence that mediated touch affords affective communication, current communication systems (such as videoconferencing) still do not support communication through the sense of touch. As a result, mediated communication does not provide the intense affective experience of co-located communication. The need for ICT mediated or generated touch as an intuitive way of social communication is even further emphasized by the growing interest in the use of touch-enabled agents and robots for healthcare, teaching, and telepresence applications. Here, we review the important role of social touch in our daily life and the available evidence that affective touch can be mediated reliably between humans and between humans and digital agents. We base our observations on evidence from psychology, computer science, sociology, and neuroscience with focus on the first two. Our review shows that mediated affective touch can modulate physiological responses, increase trust and affection, help to establish bonds between humans and avatars or robots, and initiate pro-social behavior. We argue that ICT mediated or generated social touch can (a) intensify the perceived social presence of remote communication partners and (b) enable computer systems to more effectively convey affective information. However, this research field on the crossroads of ICT and psychology is still embryonic and we identify several topics that can help to mature the field in the following areas: establishing an overarching theoretical framework, employing better research methodologies, developing basic social touch building blocks, and solving specific ICT challenges.

show abstract

Section: Controlled Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Touch in Humanâ€“Computer Interaction

Erp

Toet²

2015

Front. Digit. Humanit.

143

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Since mediated physical interaction is not necessary equivalent to mediated social touch [35], we did not include devices that allow remote physical interactions that are not relevant to mediate touch between humans.…”

Section: Existing Mediate Haptic Communication Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are two types of haptic feedback: tactile feedback (temperature, pain, physical displacement of the skin) and kinesthetic feedback (force, weight) [35]. Real-life massage would normally make the massage receiver feel both types of feedback at the same time; tactile feedback: physical displacement of skin and warmth from hands, kinesthetic feedback: force and weight from hands.…”

Section: Design Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a Massage-Inspired Haptic Device for Interpersonal Connection in Long-Distance Communication

Haritaipan

Masahiro

Mougenot

2018

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of tactile senses in mediated communication has generated considerable research interest in past decades. Since massage is a common practice in Asian cultures, we propose to introduce massage-based interactions in mediated communication between people in a close relationship. We designed a device for distant interactive massage to be used during online conversation and we assessed its effect on interpersonal connection with eight pairs of Chinese participants in romantic relationships. All pairs were asked to engage in a conversation, either through a video call or through a massage-assisted video call. The findings showed that the use of the massage device significantly increased the perceived emotional and physical connection between the users. The results also showed a significant increase in the engagement in the massage activity, e.g., total massage time and average force per finger, from positive conversation to negative conversation, demonstrating an evidence of the interplay between audio-visual and haptic communication. Post hoc interviews showed the potential of the massage device for long-distance communication in romantic relationships as well as in parents-children relationships.

show abstract

“…Although current on-line interaction mainly relies on senses of vision and hearing, there is a substantial need in mediated social touch. Comprehensive review of research on social touch is presented in [14].…”

Section: Mediated Social Touch and Haptic Communication Of Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

iFeel_IM! Emotion Enhancing Garment for Communication in Affect Sensitive Instant Messenger

Tsetserukou

Neviarouskaya

Prendinger

et al. 2009

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. In the paper we are proposing a conceptually novel approach to reinforcing (intensifying) own feelings and reproducing (simulating) the emotions felt by the partner during online communication through specially designed system, iFeel_IM!. The core component, Affect Analysis Model, automatically sense nine emotions from text. The detected emotion is stimulated by innovative haptic devices (HaptiHeart, HaptiHug, HaptiTickler, HaptiCooler, and HaptiWarmer) integrated into iFeel_IM! The implemented system can considerably enhance emotionally immersive experience of real-time messaging.

show abstract

Mediated social touch: a review of current research and future directions

Cited by 240 publications

References 81 publications

Social Touch in Humanâ€“Computer Interaction

Social Touch in Humanâ€“Computer Interaction

Design of a Massage-Inspired Haptic Device for Interpersonal Connection in Long-Distance Communication

iFeel_IM! Emotion Enhancing Garment for Communication in Affect Sensitive Instant Messenger

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About