communicating emotion through a haptic link: design space and methodology

jocelyn smith, karon maclean

an empirical study and evaluation of a prototype to allow couples to communicate through touch over a distance. They had two prototypes, the ‘handstroke’ metaphor which using a motor to give force feedback to simulate a stroke. A knob rotates and causes the corresponding knob to vibrate. What I found intriguing in their methodology was that they gave a person an emotion, such as “delighted”, and asked them to express this emotion using the haptic device. The participant would turn the knob according to how they thought this emotion would be expressed and felt by the corresponding motor. While their results are okay (54% accuracy between couples) it does show direction and opportunity for allowing people to create their own haptic mappings/meanings.

Thinking back to “design for ambiguity”, I think studying the meaning of touch has to allow for some ambiguity so that people can develop their own meanings/mappings. At the same time, I don’t think Gaver’s approach precludes universal understandings of touch and its meaning. Rather, maybe, a middle-ground? A set of tactic/haptic/synesthestic interactions that can be interpreted and re-interpreted.