Altering One's Body-Perception Through E-Textiles and Haptic Metaphors

Technologies change rapidly our perception of reality, moving from augmented to virtual to magical. While e-textiles are a key component in exergame or space suits, the transformative potential of the internal side of garments to create embodied experiences still remains largely unexplored. This paper is the result from an art-science collaborative project that combines recent neuroscience findings, body-centered design principles and 2D vibrotactile array-based fabrics to alter one's body perception. We describe an iterative design process intertwined with two user studies on the effects on body-perceptions and emotional responses of various vibration patterns within textile that were designed as spatial haptic metaphors. Our results show potential in considering materials (e.g., rocks) as sensations to design for body perceptions (e.g., being heavy, strong) and emotional responses. We discuss these results in terms of sensory effects on body perception and synergetic impact to research on embodiment in virtual environments, human-computer interaction, and e-textile design. The work brings a new perspective to the sensorial design of embodied experiences which is based on “material perception” and haptic metaphors, and highlights potential opportunities opened by haptic clothing to change body-perception

Altering one's body-perception through e-textiles and haptic metaphors

Tajadura-Jiménez A, Väljamäe A and Kuusk K (2020) Altering One's Body-Perception Through E-Textiles and Haptic Metaphors. Front. Robot. AI 7:7.Technologies change rapidly our perception of reality, moving from augmented to virtual to magical. While e-textiles are a key component in exergame or space suits, the transformative potential of the internal side of garments to create embodied experiences still remains largely unexplored. This paper is the result from an art-science collaborative project that combines recent neuroscience findings, body-centered design principles and 2D vibrotactile array-based fabrics to alter one's body perception. We describe an iterative design process intertwined with two user studies on the effects on body-perceptions and emotional responses of various vibration patterns within textile that were designed as spatial haptic metaphors. Our results show potential in considering materials (e.g., rocks) as sensations to design for body perceptions (e.g., being heavy, strong) and emotional responses. We discuss these results in terms of sensory effects on body perception and synergetic impact to research on embodiment in virtual environments, human-computer interaction, and e-textile design. The work brings a new perspective to the sensorial design of embodied experiences which is based on "material perception" and haptic metaphors, and highlights potential opportunities opened by haptic clothing to change body-perception.This work was partially supported by PSI2016-79004-R Magic Shoes project grant (AEI/FEDER, UE), from Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of Spain and the Magic Lining VERTIGO project as part of the STARTS program of the European Commission, based on technological elements from the project Magic Shoes. AT-J was supported by RYC- 2014–15421 grant from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of Spain and AV was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PUT1518

On Hacking Cultures

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Incorporating End-User Feedback in the Development and Validation of a Smart Textile for assessing Sports Training and Performance

Objectives: The aims of the research project were to explore the need and desire of a new sport wearable within applied practice by creating dialogue with the end-users. Furthermore, the research project sets out to quantify the reliability and validity a new sports wearable, KiTT (Knitted intelligent Textile Tracker), against the current gold-standard three-dimensional motion-analysis counter-part. Methods: Study 1 will utilise semi-structured interviews to create dialogue between the researcher and end-users. This will help provide an image into the current use of technology within applied practice. Furthermore, study 2 will capture and calculate the relative knee angles from KiTT’s raw resistance, and compare the results to that of Vicon, where reliability and validity will be assessed; this is imperative before task-specific research. Results: Study 1 identified a need, and requirement for new sport wearables, specifically in the form of e-textiles. This would enable end-users to adopt technology into their work, potentially enhancing their output. In addition, study 2 suggests that KiTT serves as a valid and reliable tool at recording relative knee angle across five commonly used sporting exercises, with high degrees of accuracy. Conclusion: End-users stated a need and requirement for technology such as KiTT to be created for adoption within their practice. Current systems are often inaccessible and can lead to performance losses. KiTT serves as a valid alternative to motion-capture, whilst offering more benefits to the user (cost-friendly, easy to use, and portable). When investigating an individual’s relative knee angle, KiTT should be considered especially in specific testing conditions