Virtual Interpersonal Touch: Expressing and Recognizing Emotions Through Haptic Devices

This article examines the phenomenon of Virtual Interpersonal Touch (VIT), people touching one another via force-feedback haptic devices. As collaborative virtual environments become utilized more effectively, it is only natural that interactants will have the ability to touch one another. In the work presented here, we used relatively basic devices to begin to explore the expression of emotion through VIT. In Experiment 1, participants utilized a 2 DOF force-feedback joystick to express seven emotions. We examined various dimensions of the forces generated and subjective ratings of the difficulty of expressing those emotions. In Experiment 2, a separate group of participants attempted to recognize the recordHUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 2007, Volume 22, pp. 325–353 Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Jeremy Bailenson is a social scientist with an interest in digital human representation; he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University and is the founding director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Nick Yee is a social scientist with an interest in self-representation and social interaction in virtual worlds; he is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Scott Brave is an HCI practitioner with an interest in the social aspects of computing; he received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is now the founder and chief scientist at Baynote, Inc. Dan Merget is a computer scientist with an interest in graphics; he received his Masters in Computer Science from Stanford University. David Koslow is a computer scientist with an interest in virtual human interaction; he is an undergraduate student in Computer Science at Stanford University. ings of emotions generated in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, pairs of participants attempted to communicate the seven emotions using physical handshakes. Results indicated that humans were above chance when recognizing emotions via 326 BAILENSON ET AL