Emotional Interaction Through Physical Movement

Abstract

As everyday products become more intelligent and interactive, there are growing interests on the methods to improve emotional value attached to the products. This paper presents a basic method of using temporal and dynamic design elements, in particular physical movements, to improve the emotional value of products. To utilize physical movements in design, a relation framework between movement and emotion was developed as the first step of the research. In the framework, the movement representing emotion was structurized in terms of three properties; velocity, smoothness and openness. Based on this framework, a new interactive device, 'Emotion Palpus', was developed, and a user study was also conducted. The result of the research is expected to improve emotional user experience when used as a design method or directly applied to design practice as an interactive element of products.

Abstract Expressions of Affect

“…Furthermore, Pollick et al (2001) state that energetic motion is characterized by shorter direction, acceleration, jerkiness, and greater magnitudes of average and peak velocity. Additionally, individual kinematic features are found to relate to specific emotion dimensions: Lee et al (2007) evidence that the smoothness of a movement is an indicator for pleasantness, found the level of acceleration can be used to predict the perceived arousal of a motion pattern, while Lee et al (2007) show activation is correlated to average velocity.…”

“…The effect of such operations is, however, subject to future research. These design operations provide the (2007) Smoothness of movement pleasure Lee et al (2007) Fast, jerky movement happiness Pollick et al (2001) Large, fast, jerky movement Anger Pollick et al (2001), Rime et al (1985), Sawada et al (2003) Small, slow movement Sadness, fear Pollick et al (2001), Rime et al (1985), Sawada et al (2003) Rounded movement trace Positive emotions Aronoff (2006), Angular movement trace Negative emotions Aronoff (2006) Relative motion and perceived goaldirectedness Social attributions, animacy, emotional attributions through perceived intentionality Dittrich & Lea (1994), Heider & Simmel (1944), Scholl & Tremoulet (2000) Table 2.…”

Finding roles for interactive furniture in homes with EmotoCouch

“…We designed different haptic behaviors to convey slow to fast and smooth to jerky movements in order to build up on related work of emotional associations with physical movements [6], e.g. a steady, repetitive, medium-paced drum beat for "happy" or a very irregular, fast one for "afraid".…”

Investigating the Affective Quality of Motion in User Interfaces to Improve User Experience

“…Lee (2007) studied the relationship between physical movement and emotion for application in interactive products, while Saerbeck (2010) looked into the emotional responses that robots can give with their movements [6], [7]. These studies reveal insights on how physical movement influence emotion.…”