Abstract
How touch is conceptualised matters in shaping technical advancements, bringing opportunities and challenges for development and design and raising questions for how touch experience is reconfigured. This paper explores the notion of touch in virtual reality (VR). Specifically, it identifies how touch ‘connection’ is realised and conceptualised in virtual spaces in order to explore how digital remediation of touch in VR shapes the sociality of touch experiences and touch practices. Ten participants from industry and academia with an interest in touch in virtual contexts were interviewed using an in-depth semi-structured approach to elicit experiences and perspectives around the role of touch in VR. Data analysis shows the growing value and significance of touch in virtual spaces and reveals particular ways in which touch is talked about, implemented and conceptualised. It highlights changes for the sociality of touch through participants’ conceptualisations of touch as replication and illusion, and how the body is brought into this ‘touch’ space. These perspectives of touch shape who touches, what is touched and how it is touched and set an agenda for the types of touch that are facilitated by VR. The findings suggest ways in which technological techniques can be employed towards interpretive designs of touch that allow for new ways to look at touch and haptics. They also show how touch is distorted and disrupted in ways that have implications for disturbing established ‘real world’ socialities of touch as well as their renegotiation by users in the space of digitally mediated touch in VR.
Highlights
This paper explores the notion of touch through interviews with designers, developers and researchers working in immersive virtual reality (VR) to better identify how touch ‘connection’ is realised in virtual spaces, through various interactive devices, and how the digital remediation of touch shapes the sociality of touch experiences and touch practices
Design consideration of the social, political and ethical challenges raised by digital touch is necessary to support the development of digital touch devices, systems and environments that take account and care of people’s social contexts (Jewitt et al 2020), and the socially oriented drivers underpinning this development, such as increased distant relationships promoting the need for remote communication opportunities and shared, connected experiences through new touch practices
We identify how touch is currently being conceptualised in VR and the design impacts of this to examine the potential for generating new forms of touch or changing communicative capacity and to enhance socially orientated understandings, for research and design of digital touch
Summary
This paper explores the notion of touch through interviews with designers, developers and researchers working in immersive virtual reality (VR) to better identify how touch ‘connection’ is realised in virtual spaces, through various interactive devices, and how the digital remediation of touch shapes the sociality of touch experiences and touch practices.Touch landscapes are being differently remediated by digital technology. Various digital artefacts being developed convey touch to enrich VR experiences including gloves (e.g. HaptX, Gu et al 2016); enhanced controllers through attached vibrotactile motors (e.g. Lee et al 2019) or mechanically actuators enabling users to feel the shape of virtual objects (Benko et al 2016); tactile sensations on the hand using mid-air tactile stimulation (Pittera et al 2019); ‘plasters’ using SMA technology (shape-memory alloys) “recreating the perception of a touch sensation on the forearm (e.g. gentle touch, caressing, clenching or tapping)” (Muthukumarana et al 2020 p.3); or a full-body haptic suit deploying electrical muscle stimulation (EMS). It highlights a focus on body parts—primarily the hands—as a locus of touch in VR
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
