Uncovering Human-to-Human Physical Interactions that Underlie Emotional and Affective Touch Communication · EMOTICONES

Auteur-es

Steven C. Hauser, Sarah McIntyre, Ali Israr, Håkan Olausson, Gregory J. Gerling

Nombre Auteurs

5

Titre

Uncovering Human-to-Human Physical Interactions that Underlie Emotional and Affective Touch Communication

Année de publication

2019

Référence (APA)

Hauser, S. C. (2019). Uncovering Human-to-Human Physical Interactions that Underlie Emotional and Affective Touch Communication.

résumé

Couples often communicate their emotions, e.g., love or sadness, through physical expressions of touch. Prior efforts have used visual observation to distinguish emotional touch communications by certain gestures tied to one’s hand contact, velocity and position. The work herein describes an automated approach to eliciting the essential features of these gestures. First, a tracking system records the timing and location of contact interactions in 3-D between a toucher’s hand and a receiver’s forearm. Second, data post-processing algorithms extract dependent measures, derived from prior visual observation, tied to the intensity and velocity of the toucher’s hand, as well as areas, durations and parts of the hand in contact. Third, behavioral data were obtained from five couples who sought to convey a variety of emotional word cues. We found that certain combinations of six dependent measures will distinguish the touch communications. For example, a typical sadness expression invokes more contact, evolves more slowly, and impresses less deeply into the forearm than a typical attention expression. Furthermore, cluster analysis indicates 2-5 distinct expression strategies are common per word being communicated. Specifying the essential features of touch communications can guide haptic devices in reproducing naturalistic interactions.

URL

https://research.facebook.com/file/613396316310409/Uncovering-Human-to-Human-Physical-Interactions-that-Underlie-Emotional-and-Affective-Touch-Communication-.pdf

doi

https://doi.org/10.1109%2Fwhc.2019.8816169

Accessibilité de l'article

Libre

Champ

AR/VR

Type contenu (théorique Applicative méthodologique)

Applicatif

Méthode

The method involves using a tracking system to record the timing and location of contact interactions in 3-D between a toucher's hand and a receiver's forearm. Data post-processing algorithms extract dependent measures tied to the intensity and velocity of the toucher's hand, as well as areas, durations, and parts of the hand in contact. Behavioral data were obtained from five couples who sought to convey a variety of emotional word cues.

Cas d'usage

N/A

Objectifs de l'article

The objectives of the article are "Towards the goal of quantifying emotional gestures, this work describes the customization, combination and validation of infrared video and electromagnetic tracking systems to measure contact between a toucher’s hand and a receiver’s forearm. In human-subjects experiments, we examine how these metrics differ when the toucher is asked to convey distinct sets of emotionally-charged words. The overall goal is to identify “primitive” attributes that underlie these contact metrics and tie those with the most salient perceptual responses."

Question(s) de recherche/Hypothèses/conclusion

The hypothesis is that certain combinations of dependent measures can well distinguish the touch communications and that 2-5 distinct expression strategies are common per word being communicated.

The conclusions are that certain combinations of dependent measures can distinguish emotional touch communications, that specifying the essential features of touch communications can guide haptic devices in reproducing naturalistic interactions and that "certain expression strategies, i.e., combinations of the six contact characteristics, seemed to better convey certain emotions."

Cadre théorique/Auteur.es

The theoretical framework of the article is not explicitly stated, but the authors cite previous works on the study of emotional gestures and the use of pressure data derived from touch-sensitive surfaces. The main authors cited include Hertenstein, Keltner, and Ekman.

Concepts clés

Emotional touch communication, Haptic devices, Expression strategies

Données collectées (type source)

Behavioral data obtained from five couples who sought to convey a variety of emotional word cues.

"A) shows the mean velocity of contacting fingertips and palm in the direction towards the surface normal of the arm, relating to indentation-rate or intensity of the gesture. B) shows the tangential velocity of the contact, or the velocity vector projected onto the tangent plane of the closest point on the arm. C) plots the total contact area for each gesture, summed for the palm and fingers. D) plots the mean duration of contact made between toucher and receiver within each trial. E) depicts the mean number of fingers contacting the arm throughout each gesture. F) displays the proportion of total contact time in which the palm was touching the receiver."

Définition des émotions

Categorical emotions

Ampleur expérimentation (volume de comptes)

10 participants

227 performed gestures

Technologies associées

Electromagnetic tracking devices (Trakstar and Model 800 sensors, Ascension, shelburne, VT), infra red cameras and LEDs (Leap Motion), 3-D, and haptic actuators to replicate emotional touch communications.

Mention de l'éthique

Yes, the authors mention that the behavioral experiments with human subjects were performed as approved by the Institutional Review Board, and that all enrollees granted consent to participate.

Finalité communicationnelle

"a better understanding of these input-output relationships can greatly assist in generating design requirements for tactile communication devices and sensory prosthetics."

"in addition to machine-to-human touch, our results also have implications in facilitating human-to-robot interactions."