palmScape: Calm and Pleasant Vibrotactile Signals

User Preferences for Calming Affective Haptic Stimuli in Social Settings

“…Conveying and inducing emotion via vibrotactile is still a new research topic within the haptics field, with most work taking place in the past decade and foundational papers still emerging [23]. Emotional responses to vibrotactile and thermotactile stimuli, often measured by valence and arousal (via the Circumplex Model of Affect), have been studied [23,51,59,62]. Abstract vibrotactile stimuli were found to have a wider arousal than valence range, and vibration intensity led to increased arousal [23,59,62]; arousal had a negative relationship with valence.…”

“…The Haptic Remembrance Book utilised pictures, sound and haptics to help elderly users reminisce about past experiences [15]. Macdonald et al [34] converted real-world sounds to vibrations to produce new emotionally resonant haptic stimuli and Shim et al utilised a 3x3 array of vibrotactile motors to craft cues emotionally resonant cues [51], eliciting a wider than typical range of affective responses.…”

“…The effects of safety behaviours on therapy are divisive, however, as some argue reducing the impact of the feared event weakens the therapy's impact [8,49], while others argue that safety behaviours can support adherence to difficult therapy [8,46]. Affective haptic feedback can be calming [4,12,51,64] and augmenting safety behaviours with these stimuli has the potential to improve their ability to reduce stress, while taking advantage of existing behaviours that do not require users to learn new interaction techniques.…”

“…Simulating a resting human hand is more difficult without any distinct motion, but the use of warmth, texture and pressure provided by actuators to press against the user's skin [51] are possibilities. Obrist et al asked users to define emotionally meaningful patterns which were then delivered to themselves or others using mid-air haptics [44].…”

“…We report findings from a survey (N=81) that investigated user preferences for calming affective stimuli across a range of social settings. We asked participants to envision themselves in four social situations then suggest haptic or auditory sensations they would find pleasant and calming, to help inform the creation of reassuring haptic cues [33,51]. We also explored texture and form-factor preferences.…”