Virtual touch.

The paper presents a general overview of how to apply haptics and tactile touch as an artistic material in the context of media art. It presents how touch can be used to form meaningful experiences on its own, and inside virtual and mixed realities using emergent, mobile technologies such as the smartphone

Exploring computer-generated line graphs through virtual touch

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a haptic interface designed to provide access to line graphs for blind or visually impaired people. Computer-generated line graphs can be felt by users through the sense of touch produced by a PHANToM force feedback device. Experiments have been conducted to test the effectiveness of this interface with both sighted and blind people. The results show that sighted and blind people have achieved about 89.95% and 86.83% correct answers respectively in the experiment

Virtual Touch: Embodied Experiences of (dis)Embodied Intimacy in Mediatized Performance

In this dissertation, I explore a phenomenon I call virtual touch, in which embodied sensations of touch are felt through non-tactile senses. In the digital age, online interactivity has expanded the ways in which individuals experience connection, intimacy, and touch. Digital media, which have traditionally been thought of as disembodied, nevertheless have the ability to elicit intense feelings of touch. Through analysis of digital and virtual installation art, I examine the ways that non-tactile touch remains rooted in the embodied experience. The works I include in this study create a feeling of virtual touch through a co-functioning of the senses, and through what Brian Massumi terms “the superiority of the analog,” in which all experience is inherently rooted in the body. Grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the embodied subject, I focus on three broad categories of installation art, each of which creates an affective response of virtual touch through senses of sight and proprioception: telematic performance using video-conferencing technology, digitally reactive animations, and immersive sculptures of light designed to decenter the perceptual and visual senses. Along with works by artists Paul Sermon, Adrien M & Claire B, teamLab, and James Turrell, I include analyses of two research performances I created, Being Present (2016) and (dis)embodied in space (2019), both of which entangled live and mediatized bodies through telematic video technology. Each of the artworks that I include place an emphasis on the embodied experience, engaging bodies in interactions of virtual touch with other bodies, with digitally reactive artworks, and with light and space. Throughout this dissertation, I argue for a rethinking of concepts of touch, intimacy, and connection in the digital age

How group-buying servicescape affect consumers’ purchase intention, the regulating effects of price discount and time pressure

This paper constructs a conceptual model of how group-buying servicescape affect consumers’ purchase intention and discusses the regulating effects of price discount and time pressure. This research uses a survey approach to collect data, as a result, we collected 506 valid questionnaires. The results show that aesthetic appeal, information exchange, interpersonal interaction and perceived security have a positive effect on positive emotion; layout and functionality, information exchange and interpersonal interaction have a positive effect on virtual touch. Positive emotion and virtual touch can promote the consumer’s purchase intention, and time pressure and price discount play a regulatory function. The results of this study have an important reference value for group-buying operators to use servicescape to attract and retain consumers

OPENCV BASED VIRTUAL TOUCH SCREEN FOR ROBOTIC NAVIGATION

Touch-screens have emerged as a very popular technology. The major advantage of virtual touch screens is its low cost as compared to its counterparts and their up gradation also involves minimal changes to hardware. In areas where there is no necessity of slim touch-screens, image processing touch screens are of a great asset. This paper presents very new and innovative method of robotic Navigation. In this paper we attempt to address the various problems, by focusing on achieving a high level of Accuracy at low costs, utilizing GUI techniques, all the while keeping the process simple and fast. By using web camera at PC side we have controlled robot and the communication range is also increased as the very new technology i.e. Zigbee have been introduced here

Virtual Buddhism: An Analysis of Aesthetics in Relation to Religious Practice within Second Life

Up to this point the majority of studies on religion and the internet has focused on Christianity (Campbell: 2007), Islam (Bunt: 2001, 2003) or identity (Turkle: 1995) and there has been very little attention surrounding Buddhism and the internet. This article will focus on the analysis of the senses in relation to religious practice undertaken by avatars visiting the Buddha Centre within Second Life. I will examine two interconnected aspects; the virtual environment and the senses. I will illustrate and consider why the aesthetics of the virtual environment imitates the offline environment. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that the virtual environment provides not only a rich visual and aural experience but also includes the sense of virtual touch, thus capturing three of the five senses within online religious practice. I will use an inter-disciplinary methodology including ethnography and visual analysis to examine the sensory practice in Second Life. Accordingly, the analysis of virtual touch, sight and sound in relation to religious practice within the Buddhist temple, art gallery and its surroundings will be situated within the field of religion, media and culture. In conclusion, I will assert that there is a need for further investigation of Buddhism online and that the study of the senses online should include not only the aural and visual but also virtual touch, thus reflecting further on the embodied virtual sensory experience. This article will, therefore, provide an innovative approach and contribution to the study of Buddhism and the senses online

Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences

Touch, often called the ‘first sense’, is fundamental to how we experience and know ourselves, others and the world. Increasingly, touch is being brought into the digital landscape. This paper explores this shifting landscape to understand the ways in which touch is re-mediated in the context of virtual reality. With attention to the sensoriality and sociality of touch, it asks what ‘counts’ as touch in VR, how is touch experienced and how is it incorporated into meaning making. We present and discuss findings from a multimodal and multisensory study of 16 participants interacting in two VR experiences to describe: the participants’ material encounters with the virtual through a focus on touch practices, expectations and norms; the ways in which participants made meaning of (and with) virtual touch through their dynamic selection and orchestration of the range of semiotic and experiential resources available; and how these virtual touch experiences translated into discourses of touch in VR to emphasize continuities and change between the past, present and futures. The paper comments on the methodological challenges of researching touch in the emergent landscape of VR and asks how multimodality might engage newly with touch, perhaps the most under-rated and neglected of modes and senses, and its digital remediation

Comparing two haptic interfaces for multimodal graph rendering

This paper describes the evaluation of two multimodal interfaces designed to provide visually impaired people with access to various types of graphs. The interfaces consist of audio and haptics which is rendered on commercially available force feedback devices. This study compares the usability of two force feedback devices: the SensAble PHANToM and the Logitech WingMan force feedback mouse in representing graphical data. The type of graph used in the experiment is the bar chart under two experimental conditions: single mode and multimodal. The results show that PHANToM provides better performance in the haptic only condition. However, no significant difference has been found between the two devices in the multimodal condition. This has confirmed the advantages of using multimodal approach in our research and that low-cost haptic devices can be successful. This paper introduces our evaluation approach and discusses the findings of the experiment

Diagnostic accuracy of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) in differentiating benign from malignant thyroid nodules in patients with solitary thyroid nodules and comparison with histopathology

OBJECTIVES: To assess the value of shear wave elastography (SWE) using ARFI technology in differentiating benign and malignant thyroid nodules METHODS: IRB approved prospective study in a 2800 bedded tertiary care teaching hospital. Ultrasound, shear wave velocity (SWV) measurements were obtaining by virtual touch quantification (VTQ) and virtual touch imaging (VTI) using ARFI technology on patients with solitary thyroid nodule, one or two dominant nodule of multinodular goiter >1cm. These were compared with cytology and surgical histopathology. Diagnostic performance of SWV measurement, VTI and conventional ultrasound were compared. RESULTS: Of 193 patients with 217 thyroid nodules, 153 patients (37 males, 166 females; age 16-82 years) with 172 nodules were included. There was significant difference in the mean SWV between benign (2.18+/-1.35 [95% CI=1.874-2.512] m/s) and malignant (3.97+/-2.65 [95% CI=3.43-4.503] m/s) nodules, p<0.001. There is significant difference in the elasticity score obtained by VTI between benign and malignant nodules (chi-square =70.522, p < 0.001). Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, accuracy of VTI was 82.8%, 79.0%, 84.5%, 77%, and 81.2% respectively and that of VTQ at a cut off SWV of 2.87 m/s was 82.5%, 57.1%, 53.6%, 84.5% and 65.5% respectively. Diagnostic performance of VTI (AUC = 0.849) and combined VTI+VTQ (AUC= 0.831) was better than VTQ alone, conventional ultrasound and combined criteria (conventional ultrasound + VT I + VTQ); AUC was 0.699, 0.682 and 0.727 respectively