The Making of Meaning through Dyadic Haptic Affective Touch

Abstract

Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This article reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts, which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms and expectations of touch participants. Findings suggest key design considerations for digital touch communication, where the emphasis shifts from generating ‘recognizable touches’ to tools that allow people to shape their touches and establish common understanding about their meaning.

Connected Through Mediated Social Touch: “Better Than a Like on Facebook.” A Longitudinal Explorative Field Study Among Geographically Separated Romantic Couples

“…In agreement with our first hypothesis, the geographically separated romantic couples that participated in this study reported a significant increase of overall social connectedness levels after using the haptic bracelets in daily life for a period of 2 weeks. This result is also in line with similar findings from studies that were performed for a briefer period and in restricted (laboratory) conditions (Visser et al, 2011;Park et al, 2013;van Erp and Toet, 2015;Price et al, 2022).…”

“…As such, KE and SU may not be affected by MST technology when implemented in an isolated fashion, and perhaps a more multimodal approach of testing this kind of technology (e.g., combined with mediated audio/visual cues) may influence these dimensions of social connectedness. Work by Price et al ( 2022 ) underscores this notion and illustrates how multimodal haptic signals (e.g., temperature) could also play a role here. Still, the thinking of the other subtheme from the TA illustrates how, even with a low-bandwidth signal, and lack of other (haptic) modalities, participants ascribed specific meaning to receiving a haptic signal through the bracelets and had specific intentions when sending signals.…”

“…Like the increase in salience, this significant increase in closeness is also consistent with prior research (Visser et al, 2011 ), and may stem from the way the haptic bracelets were used in this study: the use of MST technology in addition to the existing communication channels of couples [such as (video-)calling] may have increased the perceived social presence of a partner (thereby increasing feelings of closeness). Lab-based research by Price et al ( 2022 ) indeed indicates that MST technology can contribute to a feeling of ‘tactile presence' where the technology signals that the other ‘is there.' Again, this aligns closely with results of the TA, in particular the first main theme.…”

“…The observation that interpersonal touch is essential for human wellbeing and communication has stimulated the development of mediated social touch (MST) technology, with the aim to enable affective haptic social interaction over a distance (Haans and IJsselsteijn, 2006 ; van Erp and Toet, 2015 ; Huisman, 2017 ; Ipakchian Askari et al, 2020a ). Most studies investigating the user experience of MST technology involve brief (ranging from hours to at most a few days) experiments that are performed in well-controlled laboratory conditions (e.g., Rantala et al, 2013 ; Nakanishi et al, 2014 ; Erk et al, 2015 ; Ipakchian Askari et al, 2020b ; Sykownik and Masuch, 2020 ; Price et al, 2022 ; for a review see Huisman, 2017 ). Although these studies provide valuable insights into the immediate perception of mediated touch signals, they do not reveal any long-term effects of MST-use, or whether the perception or use of MST changes over time.…”

Editorial

“…Handshake: A Gripping History by Al-Shamahi (2021), and Out of Touch, by Druin (2022). Touch has been shown to be an effective means of influencing people's attitudes and creating bonds with people and places (Price et al, 2022): themes explored by Golmohammadi, Samuelsson, and Cohrt in their contributions. Interpersonal touch has been shown to improve information flow and to result in a more favourable evaluation of communication partners and to increase compliance (Field, 2003).…”