(1) A study examined how remote touch influences feelings of connectedness and emotional experience compared to other channels like flashing light or audio only. (2) Participants who received remote touch intended as a communicative gesture from the storyteller reported feeling significantly closer than other conditions. (3) The combination of remote touch intended as a communication and the expectation that it conveyed emotion led to an intensified emotion experience and sense of closeness compared to other channels and expectations.

1. KEEP IN TOUCH: CHANNEL,
EXPECTATION AND EXPERIENCE
Rongrong Wang, Virginia Tech
Francis Quek, Virginia Tech
Deborah Tatar, Virginia Tech
James K.S. Teh, National University of Singapore
Adrian D. Cheok, Keio University, Japan
CHI May 7, 2012

2. “I’m Hugging You, Dad!”

3. Was Paul Sending a Coded Message?

4. Encode Decode
Message Message
Touch Channel
Touch as a Symbol Mediation

5. Touch
Touch as Immediate

6. Goal
To understand whether and how
remote touch in conjunction with speech
can influence the sense of connectedness
& emotional experience

7. Touch
 Touch & Emotion Communication
 Valenced Emotions [Wolff 1963, Brossard 1968]
 Emotion Amplifier [Knapp 1997]
 Distinct Emotions [Hertenstein 2002]
 Context Is Key [Jones 1985]
Touch Conveys Affect in An Immediate
Non-symbolic Manner.

8. Remote Touch
 Digitally Mediated Touch
 Focused on design
 Either by design or user decision
 Message Passing
Remote Touch Doesn’t Inherit The
Immediacy of Real Touch?

9. Armband
Shape Memory Alloy

10. Story-Telling Study
C1: Audio Only
Touch Touch
C2: Audio + Touch Point Point

11. Results shows
 Significant reduction in sadness
 General trend toward greater joviality
Remote Touch can influence the affective
components in communication
Wang, Rongrong and Quek, Francis, “Talk & Touch: Contextualize Remote Touch
for Affective Conveyance”, TEI 2010

12. Is the specific modality of touch important?
How does the context influence the effect of
remote touch?

13. Type of Channel
Speech + Remote Touch Speech + Flashing Light

14. Expectation of Communicative Intent
 “Communicative”
 Remote touch is intentionally sent by the story teller to express
her emotion states.
 “Measurement”
 Remote touch is triggered by a measurement of the story teller’s
emotion state.

15. Study Design:
Channel x Experience
Speech +Additional Channel Speech Only
Channel Remote Touch Flashing Light
Expectation
Communicative Communicative Touch Communicative Light Base Condition
(CT) (CL)
Measurement Measurement Touch Measurement Light
(MT) (ML)

16. Study Procedure
 Story Practice Session
 Pre-PANAS (Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedules)
 Story
 Post-PANAS
 Semi-Structured Interview
 “How close do you feel to the storyteller? Please use the
likert scale 1(not at all) to 7(extremely) to indicate.”
 “Why do you feel connected this way?”

17. Data Collection & Analysis
 PANAS
 Semi-Structured Interview
 Audio Recorded (about 4 hours)
 Transcribed (90 pages)
 Open Coding

18. Upper-Arm Squeeze Device

19. Result 1: The Sense of Closeness
One Way
ANOVA
Communicativ Measurement Communicative Measurement Speech
e Touch Light Light Only
Touch
CT has the highest rating in the sense of closeness which
is significantly higher than Base(p< 0.05)

20. Result 2: Interaction Effect Between
Channel and Expectation
 Two-Way ANOVA on Closeness
Interaction Plot
 Variables 6
 Channel x Expectation 5 5
4.4375
4 4
 Dependent Variable 3.625
3
 Closeness Rating
2
1
0
A statistically significant Communicative Measurement
Touch
interaction effect (p<0.05) Flashing Light

21. “Why do you feel close this way? ”
1. “The story is nice.”
2. “The way she told the story.” and “The way she carries her emotion
in her voice. ”
3. “Own personal experience makes me feel close.”
4. “The squeeze feels like a personal physical contact and helps me
visualize the activity. ” (only in CT and MT)
5. “The flashing light makes me feel more about her feelings.” (only in
CL and ML)
6. “Not much in common.” and “I don’t like her story.”

22. Positive Comments (Category 1~5)
 # of positive comments in CT is significantly higher than
that in the base condition (p<0.05)
 2-Way ANOVA: significant interaction effect between
channel and expectation (p<0.05)

23. Result 3: CT leads to an intensified
emotion experience
Changes in Negative Emotions Changes in Joviality
Changes in Sadness

24. Conclusion
 Context is critical:
 Recipient’s expectation of communicative intent from storyteller
significantly impacts the sense of connectedness
 Results support Immediacy of Touch
 Affect and connectedness are unlikely to be encoded symbolic
statements
 Results support Uniqueness of Touch
 Difference in touch vs light channels (especially in the interaction
effect) suggest that touch is not easily replaced

25. Acknowledgement
 NSF
 Keio-NUS CUTE Center
 Center for HCI at Virginia Tech
 Participants
 Steve Harrison