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Augmenting
Digital
Communication
With a Social
Touch
Augmenting digital
communication with
a social touch
Robin van Emden
VU Amsterdam Emotion Regulation Lab
@KLI 2015
Social relationships and health
Digital media and relationships
(Aric Sigman, 2009).
1. Social communication
2. Importance of touch
3. Examples  mediated and robot touch
4. Ethical aspect
Augmenting digital
communication with touch
Human-Human Interaction
Transmitter
Receiver
Receiver
TransmitterChannels
Channels
Person A Person B
Verbal Speech
Mediated Human-Human
Transmitter
Receiver
Receiver
TransmitterChannels
Channels
Person A Person B
Verbal Speech
Digitized Channels
PC, Mobile, Device
Nonverbal Touch
Human-Robot Interaction
Transmitter
Receiver
Receiver
TransmitterChannels
Channels
Person A
Robot
Verbal
Nonverbal Touch
Speech
Artificial Intelligence
Augmenting digital communication with social touch
1. Social communication
2. Importance of touch
3. Examples  mediated and robot touch
4. Ethical aspect
A Soothing Digital Touch
Importance of touch
 Touch, like warmth, is as vital as food  lacking touch we
wither, or fail to develop to our full potential
 Touch can affect multiple neurobiological systems that
are targets of anti-depressants and anxiolytic
medications as well.
 A touch after a stressful event or the experience of a
triggering event can speed the reduction of cortisol
levels
 Soothing, safe touch can be an effective means to
provide an experience of safety and evoke the relaxation
response
Importance of touch
 In parents, it touch been shown to increase the quality
of their relationship, infant-parent synchrony,
perception of partner support and it seems to reduce
the effects of post-partum depression.
 Massage has been shown to
reduce symptoms of depression,
state anxiety, and PTSD
1. Social communication
2. Importance of touch
3. Examples  mediated and robot touch
4. Ethical aspect
A Soothing Digital Touch
Augmenting digital communication with social touch
Augmenting digital communication with social touch
Augmenting digital communication with social touch
The Haptic Creature
Augmenting digital communication with social touch
1. Social communication
2. Importance of touch
3. Examples  mediated and robot touch
4. Ethical aspect
A Soothing Digital Touch
Ethical aspect - Hikikomori

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Augmenting digital communication with social touch

Editor's Notes

  • #4: Firstl Social isolation has long been shown to be bad for human health. A seminal paper, Social Relationships and health, already showed as much in 1988, when reviewing several prospective studies Each of the studies in the review paper clearly indicated that people with fewer social relationships die earlier on average than those with more social relationships. Since that time much more evidence has accumulated, Julianne will probably tell us more about these tomorrow. House, J. S., Landis, K. R., & Umberson, D. (1988). Social relationships and health. Science, 241(4865), 540-545.
  • #5: Face to face versus digital communication in the US Mostly non-touch important nonverbal communication channel missing Since Hans has already presented why warmth is if such great importance in mediating healthy social development and emotion regulation, I will Concentrate here on TOUCH, independently of warmth Even though research suggest touch and warmth are interrelated. Sigman, Aric (2009), Well Connected? The biological implications of social networking, Biologist, Volume 56 Number 1, February 2009
  • #6: To help structure this presentation, I will use a communications model to illustrate some core concepts
  • #7: In general, in psychology, we are interested in Human Human interaction. Yet you these days we are able replace or augment one, or maybe even several building blocks of this human human interactions with digized versions. To help clarify that, I will make use of a simplified version of the Shannon and Weaver Model of Communication
  • #8: as can be seen in our model, we might digitize the middle segments of our model, the communication channels, or the right segment, replacing person B, that is the person you communicate with. The mobile phone and the internet already enable us to digitize particularly our VERBAL interactions Just think of email, chat, or facebook Still, a large and important part of our communication is non-verbal, and a lot of this non-verbal communication misses in our current digital interactions. Which is why I am so interested in the potential social and psychological impact of adding a digital WARM SOCIAL TOUCH To digital communication
  • #9: This becomes especially interesting now that the areas of AFFECTIVE COMPUTING and SOCIAL ROBOTICS are growing up, In effect replacing not the channels, but the person we might socially communicate with We are creating ever more natural artificial intelligent humanlike agents (such as APPLE SIRI) And, from my social touch point of view even more interesting, more and more humanlike robots.
  • #10: Though most of the work on these robots is mainly technology driven For example, the SELEMCA team at the VU works on so-called Caredroids And the engineers at this project say that theyd rather a warm robot, than a cold nurse This robot really illustrates rather well that a warmer, more psychological perspective might help create robots youd really feel to be caring, rather than just carrying you.
  • #11: NVC can be communicated through gestures and by body language or posture, by facial expression and eye contact. Also, to complicate the previous dichotomy, Speech contains nonverbal elements as well Still, touch (and warmth, as Hans stated) seems to be one of the relatively more understudied, yet also one of the most profound communicators of emotion
  • #12: Touch, like warmth, is as vital as food lacking touch we wither, or fail to develop to our full potential Touch can affect multiple neurobiological systems that are targets of anti-depressants, anxiolytic medications. A touch after a stressful event or the experience of a triggering event can speed the reduction of cortisol levels, and reduce physiological indicators of stress. Soothing, safe touch can be an effective means to provide an experience of safety, evoke the relaxation response and for some positive emotions
  • #13: In parents, it touch been shown to increase the quality of their relationship, infant-parent synchrony, perception of partner support and it seems to reduce the effects of post-partum depression. Massage has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression, state anxiety, and PTSD
  • #14: Now there are some devices out there that already are experimenting with adding social touch related
  • #15: There is for example the Frebble, by Holland Haptics, a partner of ours Frebble is an accessory designed to allow you to hold hands with someone at a distance: when you squeeze it, the other person feels your squeeze
  • #16: And of course, the Apple Phone, Which enables you to broadcast your heartbeat to a friend or lover
  • #17: Paro is a therapeutic robot baby seal, intended to be very cute and to have a calming effect on and elicit emotional responses in patients of hospitals and nursing homes, similar to Animal-Assisted Therapy. It can show emotions such as surprise, happiness and anger
  • #18: Steve Yohanan created what he calls a "Haptic Creature," a robot rabbit that is designed to mimic the interactions a person has with their pet -- namely, by responding when it's touched or stroked by making breathing movements, inaudible purring vibrations, or by moving its ears. That apparently has already proven to be quite successful in preliminary tests, with those simple responses able to "elicit a range of emotions in humans."
  • #19: Subjects showed significant emotional responses to the haptic creature
  • #20: There are probably several ethical aspects that are of interest here, but for this presentation Id like to focus on one aspect is it ok to replace natural face to face interaction with digital substitutes?
  • #21: In other words, might it be a good idea to replace human-human interaction with, for example, human-robot interaction? The robot could then be programmed to be our perfect partners! Not such a farfetched question, in Japan there is a group of 500.000 to 2.000.000 of young adults that refuse to leave their house, the Hikikomori YOUNG SHUT-INS dakimakura