KEEP IN TOUCH: CHANNEL, EXPECTATION AND

EXPERIENCERongrong 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

“I’m Hugging You, Dad!”

Was Paul Sending a Coded Message?

Goal

To understand whether and how

remote touch in conjunction with speech

can influence the sense of connectedness

& emotional experience

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.

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?

Armband

Shape Memory Alloy

Story-Telling Study

Touch

Point

C1: Audio Only

C2: Audio + Touch Touch

Point

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

Is the specific modality of touch important?

How does the context influence the effect of remote touch?

Speech + Remote Touch Speech + Flashing Light

Type of Channel

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.

Study Design: Channel x Experience

Speech +Additional Channel Speech Only

Channel

Expectation

Remote Touch Flashing Light

Base ConditionCommunicative Communicative Touch(CT)

Communicative Light (CL)

Measurement Measurement Touch(MT)

Measurement Light(ML)

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?”

Data Collection & Analysis

PANAS

Semi-Structured Interview

Audio Recorded (about 4 hours)

Transcribed (90 pages)

Open Coding

Upper-Arm Squeeze Device

Result 1: The Sense of Closeness

CT has the highest rating in the sense of closeness which is significantly higher than Base(p< 0.05)

One Way ANOVA

Communicative

Touch

MeasurementTouch

CommunicativeLight

MeasurementLight

Speech Only

Result 2: Interaction Effect Between Channel and Expectation

Two-Way ANOVA on Closeness Variables

Channel x Expectation

Dependent Variable Closeness Rating

Communicative Measurement

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

5

43.625

4.4375

Interaction Plot

Touch

Flashing Light

A statistically significant

interaction effect (p<0.05)

“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.”

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)

Result 3: CT leads to an intensified emotion experience

Changes in Negative Emotions

Changes in Sadness

Changes in Joviality

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

Acknowledgement

NSF Keio-NUS CUTE Center Center for HCI at Virginia Tech

Participants Steve Harrison