The pleasant heat? Evidence for thermal-emotional implicit associations occurring with semantic and physical thermal stimulation

Bergman, Penny; Ho, Hwai‐Chung; Koizumi, Akira; Tajadura‐Jiménez, Ana; Kitagawa, Norimichi

doi:10.1080/17588928.2014.988132

Cited by 12 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Abovementioned considerations raise the question whether the supposed effect actually exists, and if so, to what extent these significant findings are of actual practical use. Our results suggest, contrary to earlier research [9,33,47,72,87], that the effects on comfort and social warmth, if any, are not substantial enough to be of practical significance during CMC. This is however not to say that we should disregard warmth as a communication medium altogether.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…With two studies and meta-analyses, we set out to find empirical support for the suggestion that interaction via a physically warm medium may increase comfort and pro-social cognitions about one's communication partner, as compared to interaction via an unheated medium [9,33,47,72,87]. We intended to verify whether the physical-social warmth link is also applicable in CMC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, rather than being a specific response to social stress, the decrease in skin temperature may also be a common sympathetic response to negative, stressful events [54,75], which is reflected by vasoconstriction in for instance the fingertips or the tip of the nose. The inconclusiveness regarding earlier research on the physical-social warmth link and its underlying mechanisms warrants an empirical validation of the suggested beneficial effects concerning social connectedness and comfort of warmth in CMC [9,33,47,72,87,98].…”

Section: The Link Between Physical and Social Warmthmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Using non-noxious physical warmth is often proposed for affective CMC [9,33,47,87,98], as it provides a pleasant, comfortable feeling, is semantically associated with positive emotional valence [9], and activates brain regions associated with positive emotions [82,104]. Moreover, perceptions of physical warmth can activate perceptions of 'social warmth' (i.e., the experience of being connected to another) [47,102]: a physical-social warmth link.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Communication via warm haptic interfaces does not increase social warmth

Willemse

Heylen

Erp

2018

J Multimodal User Interfaces

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Affective haptic interfaces are designed to influence one's emotional and physiological state via the sense of touch, and may be applied as communication media to increase the sense of closeness. Recent research suggests that stimulation with physical warmth can enhance this interpersonal closeness: a physical-social warmth link. It is often suggested that this link may be particularly suitable for application in affective haptic interfaces, but the scientific evidence is inconclusive. In this work we investigated whether adding physical warmth to a communication medium-an interactive teddy bear-could increase social connectedness between remotely located interactants and could provide physiological comfort during stressful circumstances. Moreover, we investigated whether the warmth could best be presented to the users as a mere physical attribute of the medium or as mediated body heat; thereby manipulating the attribution of the warmth to either a non-social or social source. The results of two studies in which participants ostensibly received a message from an unknown other (Study 1, N = 65) or comforting messages from their own partner (Study 2, N = 62), and meta-analyses did not provide support for the hypotheses that warmth, purely physical or attributed to one's partner, can positively influence one's social and physiological state. Although future research should corroborate our findings, they indicate that the physical-social warmth link may not be as applicable in affective mediated communication as suggested.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Link Between Physical and Social Warmthmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Communication via warm haptic interfaces does not increase social warmth

Willemse

Heylen

Erp

2018

J Multimodal User Interfaces

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“…However, recent alternative theories, i.e., the “embodied” models, suggest that the internal representation is implemented via stimulations in the brain's modal systems and interfaced with the external structures (Barsalou, 2010 ). Specifically regarding temperature stimulation, one study revealed an implicit association between emotional and thermal concepts with semantic and physical thermal stimulation (Bergman et al, 2014 ), but whether there is a direct link between thermal processing and its corresponding semantic processing has not been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual-Semantic Congruency Facilitates Semantic Discrimination of Thermal Qualities

Zhou

Watanabe

2017

Front. Psychol.

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The ability to sense temperature is vital to our life. It signals the environmental condition, reflects the physiological conditions of our own body, and generates feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness. Moreover, recent studies have demonstrated implicit associations between physical temperature and social/emotional concepts, suggesting the processing of temperature may even influence cognition. In this work, we examined the effect of physical warmth and coldness on semantic cognition. Participants performed speeded target categorization for thermal descriptors in the form of semantic words or illustrative figures representing the thermal qualities “warm” or “cold” while physical thermal stimulation was presented. We compared the average reaction time (RT) for the congruent and incongruent conditions managed by response key assignments. In the congruent condition, the response key for the symbol associated with warmth (coldness) was assigned to the hand with warm (cold) thermal stimulation, and in the incongruent condition the key assignment was reversed. Our results demonstrate that the average RT in the congruent condition was faster than in the incongruent one for both forms of thermal descriptors, suggesting that the experience of physical temperature facilitates the internal processing of the meaning of thermal quality.

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Cold Revenge in Stone Mattress

Harrison

2024

Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style

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The pleasant heat? Evidence for thermal-emotional implicit associations occurring with semantic and physical thermal stimulation

Cited by 12 publications

References 20 publications

Communication via warm haptic interfaces does not increase social warmth

Communication via warm haptic interfaces does not increase social warmth

Perceptual-Semantic Congruency Facilitates Semantic Discrimination of Thermal Qualities

Cold Revenge in Stone Mattress

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