The Making of Meaning through Dyadic Haptic Affective Touch

Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This article reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts, which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms and expectations of touch participants. Findings suggest key design considerations for digital touch communication, where the emphasis shifts from generating ‘recognizable touches’ to tools that allow people to shape their touches and establish common understanding about their meaning.

Understanding Depressive Feelings as Situated Affections

Phenomenologists define social impairments as key aspects of depression and argue that depression is irreducible to the individual. In this article I aim to further elaborate this non-reductionist notion of depression by claiming that depression not only corresponds to an impaired experience of social relations, but also arises from a socially impaired world. To pursue this goal, I will challenge the understanding of depression as an affective disorder blocking the affective communication between individual and environment. I will redefine feelings of depression as situated affections, and hence suggest that (1) they are products of the individual's situatedness in a depressogenic environment and (2) they function in initiating an active withdrawal from such environment.

A Dyadic Latent Profile Analysis of Older Couples’ Psychological, Relational, and Physical Health

The present study explored the heterogeneity of older couples’ psychological, relational, and physical health using a sample of 535 couples above the age of 62. A dyadic latent profile analysis was conducted to identify and predict unique clusters of couples’ relative psychological (depressive symptoms and daily hassles), relational (problematic affective communication and marital satisfaction), and physical health (number of health problems and self-reported health satisfaction). Predictors of class membership included relationship length, age, income, and hours worked outside the home. Results revealed 4 distinct classes: Happy & Healthy Together (63.5%), Individually & Relationally Strained (14.7%), Relationally Happy with Strained Wives (12.3%), and Relationally Happy with Strained Husbands (9.3%). Typology descriptions and predictors of class membership will be discussed. These findings highlight that health promotion efforts should be tailored to the specific psychological, relational, and physical health concerns of both partners rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Unboxing the bento box: An arts-informed inquiry into Japanese families’ experience at Canadian school lunch time

Bento, a Japanese style boxed lunch, has a distinct cultural meaning for Japanese people as a medium of affective communication between children and parents. However, in Canadian schools governed by the Anglo-Western food norms, their culinary practices may stand out. This study employed an arts-informed participatory design to explore how school-aged children (6-12 years old) of Japanese origin and their parents describe their experience bringing Japanese food to school in Canada. We conducted arts-informed workshops with 16 children who created artworks about their lunchboxes, and focus groups with 19 parents (all mothers). Children’s artworks illuminated a common aesthetics about “good” lunch that closely reflected mothers’ commitment to preparing nutritionally balanced and aesthetically appealing bento boxes. Both children and mothers reported that Canadian school food environment (e.g., short eating periods, snack times, built environment) sometimes misaligns with their food practices. Some families were compelled to modify their bento to accommodate children’s needs to fit in at school. Meantime, participants’ narratives indicate the prevalence of stigma toward “junk” food that may perpetuate food shaming at school. A more inclusive, diverse and culturally appropriate discussion on “healthy eating” at school can embrace children’s and their families’ intercultural food identities.

Affective Communication for Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Research on affective communication for socially assistive robots has been conducted to enable physical robots to perceive, express, and respond emotionally. However, the use of affective computing in social robots has been limited, especially when social robots are designed for children, and especially those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Social robots are based on cognitive-affective models, which allow them to communicate with people following social behaviors and rules. However, interactions between a child and a robot may change or be different compared to those with an adult or when the child has an emotional deficit. In this study, we systematically reviewed studies related to computational models of emotions for children with ASD. We used the Scopus, WoS, Springer, and IEEE-Xplore databases to answer different research questions related to the definition, interaction, and design of computational models supported by theoretical psychology approaches from 1997 to 2021. Our review found 46 articles; not all the studies considered children or those with ASD.

The McNorm Library: Creating and Validating a New Library of Emotionally Expressive Dance Movement

The ability to exchange affective cues with others plays a key role in our ability to create and maintain meaningful social relationships. We express our emotions through a variety of socially salient cues, including facial expressions, the voice, and body movement. While significant advances have been made in our understanding of verbal and facial communication, to date, understanding of the role played by human body movement in our social interactions remains incomplete. To this end, here we describe the creation and validation of a new set of emotionally expressive whole-body dance movement stimuli, named the Motion Capture Norming (McNorm) Library, which was designed to reconcile a number of limitations associated with previous movement stimuli. This library comprises a series of point-light representations of a dancer’s movements, which were performed to communicate neutrality, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear to observers. Based on results from two validation experiments, participants could reliably discriminate the intended emotion to clips in this stimulus set, with accuracy rates up to 60% (chance = 20%). We further explored the impact of dance experience and trait empathy on emotion recognition and found that neither significantly impacted emotion discrimination. As all materials for presenting and analysing this movement library are openly available, we hope this resource will aid other researchers in further exploration of affective communication expressed by human bodily movement.

FeelMusic: Enriching Our Emotive Experience of Music through Audio-Tactile Mappings

We present and evaluate the concept of FeelMusic and evaluate an implementation of it. It is an augmentation of music through the haptic translation of core musical elements. Music and touch are intrinsic modes of affective communication that are physically sensed. By projecting musical features such as rhythm and melody into the haptic domain, we can explore and enrich this embodied sensation; hence, we investigated audio-tactile mappings that successfully render emotive qualities. We began by investigating the affective qualities of vibrotactile stimuli through a psychophysical study with 20 participants using the circumplex model of affect. We found positive correlations between vibration frequency and arousal across participants, but correlations with valence were specific to the individual. We then developed novel FeelMusic mappings by translating key features of music samples and implementing them with “Pump-and-Vibe”, a wearable interface utilising fluidic actuation and vibration to generate dynamic haptic sensations. We conducted a preliminary investigation to evaluate the FeelMusic mappings by gathering 20 participants’ responses to the musical, tactile and combined stimuli, using valence ratings and descriptive words from Hevner’s adjective circle to measure affect. These mappings, and new tactile compositions, validated that FeelMusic interfaces have the potential to enrich musical experiences and be a means of affective communication in their own right. FeelMusic is a tangible realisation of the expression “feel the music”, enriching our musical experiences.

Social Behavior and Ultrasonic Vocalizations in a Genetic Rat Model Haploinsufficient for the Cross-Disorder Risk Gene Cacna1c

The top-ranked cross-disorder risk gene CACNA1C is strongly associated with multiple neuropsychiatric dysfunctions. In a recent series of studies, we applied a genomically informed approach and contributed extensively to the behavioral characterization of a genetic rat model haploinsufficient for the cross-disorder risk gene Cacna1c. Because deficits in processing social signals are associated with reduced social functioning as commonly seen in neuropsychiatric disorders, we focused on socio-affective communication through 22-kHz and 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USV). Specifically, we applied a reciprocal approach for studying socio-affective communication in sender and receiver by including rough-and-tumble play and playback of 22-kHz and 50-kHz USV. Here, we review the findings obtained in this recent series of studies and link them to the key features of 50-kHz USV emission during rough-and-tumble play and social approach behavior evoked by playback of 22-kHz and 50-kHz USV. We conclude that Cacna1c haploinsufficiency in rats leads to robust deficits in socio-affective communication through 22-kHz and 50-kHz USV and associated alterations in social behavior, such as rough-and-tumble play behavior.