Social touch technologies:how they feel and how they make you feel

Social Touch, such as holdings hands or hugs, forms an important communication modality in our daily lives. Touches can elicit a plethora of physiological, psychological, and behavioral effects in the recipient. A hug can for example decrease physiological stress responses, holding hands can intensify the mutual bond, and a casual touch on the shoulder can increase one’s willingness to comply with a request. Haptic actuators can be utilized to emulate human touches, with the intention to elicit similar responses in the recipient. In the dissertation, I present research on two different types of such social touch technologies: Mediated Social Touch (i.e., ICT-enabled touch between two remotely located people), in which we focused on the role that physical warmth can play. and Simulated Social Touch (which is initiated by artificial social agents), for which we focused on robot-initiated touch. The main questions were 1.) whether each touch technology can elicit similar responses in the recipient as human touches, and 2.) how elements such as context, social relation, and design of the technology modulate these responses.On the premise that perceiving (non-social) physical warmth can elicit feelings of social warmth (feeling more connected to another person), we investigated whether physical warmth as an element in Mediated Social Touch can elicit ’socially warm’ responses in the recipient. Three studies, in which participants perceived physical warmth through remotely controlled interfaces (such as a heated Teddy Bear), did not provide evidence for beneficial effects of warmth. With regard to Simulated Social Touch though, we demonstrated that robot-initiated touches can elicit beneficial responses (such as an enhanced bond with a robot and decreased physiological stress responses), albeit only under specific circumstances. The recipient of the touch should be familiar with the robot’s capabilities before being touched, and ideally, the robot has a friendly but not too human appearance. The research as presented demonstrates that social touch technologies can elicit responses that are comparable to responses to human touches, but only within specific boundary conditions. As such, the dissertation provides extensive groundwork for further research on the opportunities and limitations of social touch technologies

A warm Touch of Affect?

One of the research areas within affective Computer Mediated Communication currently under investigation is that of mediated social touch. A social touch is a complex composition of different physical parameters that can be simulated by haptic technologies. In this article we argue why we think it makes sense to incorporate warmth - and in particular simulations of one's body heat - in mediated communication devices; that is, physical warmth affects perceptions of social warmth, and our skin temperature can be considered a display of our socio-emotional state. Moreover, we outline specific research domains for the current PhD project

Sensators: Active Multisensory Tangible User Interfaces

Although Tangible User Interfaces are considered an intuitive means of human-computer interaction, they oftentimes lack the option to provide active feedback. We developed ‘Sensators’: generic shaped active tangibles to be used on a multi-touch table. Sensators can represent digital information by means of ‘Sensicons’: multimodal messages consisting of visual, auditory, and vibro- tactile cues. In our demonstration, we will present Sensators as suitable tools for research on multimodal perception in different tangible HCI tasks

Observing Touch from Video: The Influence of Social Cues on Pleasantness Perceptions

In order to advance the understanding of affective touch perceptions, and in particular to inform the design of physical human-robot interactions, an online video study was conducted in which observed stroking touches were assessed on perceived pleasantness. Touches were applied at different velocities and either with a human hand, a robot hand, a mannequin hand, or a plastic tube. In line with earlier research, it was found that stroking touches with a velocity of ca. 3 cm/s were rated as most pleasant. Moreover, the subjective pleasantness scores suggest that the stimulus type interacts with the stroking velocity. The possible roles that social agency, expectations, and anthropomorphism may play in perceptions of pleasantness are discussed