Haptic Contact Research Articles

Hand in Hand: The Erotics of Touch in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility

ABSTRACT The significance of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood’s bond in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has been well acknowledged by critics. In the midst of lackluster suitors, malicious relations, and brazen gossips, Elinor and Marianne’s relationship seems the only one that really matters in the end. Yet despite the centrality of Elinor and Marianne’s intimacy, the novel concludes with their respective marriages to Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon. Turning our attention toward the phenomenology of hands and touch in Sense and Sensibility, however, changes the way we approach narrative by undermining the teleology of the marriage plot. In contrast to the hollow acts and mediating objects of affection offered by potential suitors, Willoughby and Edward Ferrars, Elinor and Marianne’s handholding constitutes deeply affective and unmediated moments of physical contact that attest to the primacy of touch underlying the most passionate attachments. In this light, the concluding marriages do not recant the rest of the novel but rather serve a strategic choice motivated by what these marriages make possible. Far from enforcing heterosexual closure, Elinor and Marianne’s marriages fulfill a different agenda: preserving the sisters’ lasting haptic contact with one another.

Unravelling the Interplay between Materials, Senses and Perception in Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Weaving Art

This article comprehensively studies the multisensual experience in Magdalena Abakanowicz’s weaving art. While previous research in this context has focused on the erotic nature of her works, this study addresses the broader aspect of multisensual engagement. Drawing on a phenomenological approach and the philosophical contributions of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, it explores Abakanowicz’s involvement in creative and exhibition practices. The research incorporates insights from scholars such as Richard Shusterman, Mark Paterson and art historians. Using art historical analysis and direct haptic contact with Abakanowicz’s works, the study analyses the materials and techniques of three fabric types. The findings reveal that the enduring interest in the artist’s work lies in anthropomorphising quality that activates viewers’ senses, fostering a profound connection between the audience and art. The article demonstrates how Abakanowicz skilfully influences viewers’ senses and emotions through material choices, techniques, and personal involvement. Ultimately, it highlights the significance of considering sensory reflection as a crucial aspect of art historical analysis.

Affective Transmission and Haptic Contact in Middlemarch

Abstract Though, when compared to speech, touch is one of the less prominent methods of social connection in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, haptic contact forms a potent vector for affective transference in the novel. In this article, the shift from miasma to germ theory in how Victorians conceived of disease transmission in the 1860s and 1870s grounds a theoretical framework by which one can reexamine touch in Middlemarch. On this reading, the direct, embodied transmission of germ theory becomes representative of how touch between skin functions in the novel. This affective transmission bidirectionally propels the relationship between Dorothea Brooks and Will Ladislaw, as well as the friendship between Dorothea and Rosamond Lydgate; touch breaks down the barriers between the characters. Therefore, Middlemarch describes the engagement with embodied beings through touch.

Haptic Rapport: more-than-human movement, sensing, and communion in US forest service trails

ABSTRACT This research explores how belonging and communion emerge from the human body engaging directly with more-than-human (MtH) during nature-based recreation. It asks: how are nature-based recreators experiencing relationships with more-than-human via their movement and sensing in US Forest Service trails? This research presents the conceptual tool haptic rapport to better explore and represent the intimate, sensory-based, meaningful, and embodied relationships that come about through haptic contact occurring specifically between human and MtH natures. Contact-based and flow-based haptic rapport are explored here. This data serve to contradict structurally presumed separations between humans and MtHs; between recreational mobilities and belonging; and between cutaneous touch and internalisation of that touch experience. This research highlights USFS land spaces as essential sites for nature-based recreation, belonging and sensing place, mobility, and the human-MtH relationships they make possible. Haptic rapport can be applied in all contexts and fields to better understand the intimacies and meaning-making associated with MtH-human engagements.

Cerebral Projection of Mirrored Touch via sLORETA Imaging.

Touch is one of the primary communication tools. Interestingly, the sensation of touch can also be experienced when observed in another person. Due to the system of mirror neurons, it is, in fact, being mapped on the somatosensory cortex of the observer. This phenomenon can be triggered not only by observing touch in another individual, but also by a mirror reflection of the contralateral limb. Our study aims to evaluate and localize changes in the intracerebral source activity via sLORETA imaging during the haptic stimulation of hands, while modifying this contact by a mirror illusion. A total of 10 healthy volunteers aged 23-42 years attended the experiment. The electrical brain activity was detected via scalp EEG. First, we registered the brain activity during resting state with open and with closed eyes, each for 5 min. Afterwards, the subjects were seated at a table with a mirror reflecting their left hand and occluding their right hand. The EEG was then recorded in 2 min sequencies during four modifications of the experiment (haptic contact on both hands, stimulation of the left hand only, right hand only and without any tactile stimuli). We randomized the order of the modifications for each participant. The obtained EEG data were converted into the sLORETA program and evaluated statistically at the significance level of p ≤ 0.05. The subjective experience of all the participants was registered using a survey. A statistically significant difference in source brain activity occurred during all four modifications of our experiment in the beta-2, beta-3 and delta frequency bands, resulting in the activation of 10 different Brodmann areas varying by modification. The results suggest that the summation of stimuli secured by interpersonal haptic contact modified by mirror illusion can activate the brain areas integrating motor, sensory and cognitive functions and further areas related to communication and understanding processes, including the mirror neuron system. We believe these findings may have potential for therapy.

Design and evaluation of smart-exhibit systems that enrich cultural heritage experiences for the visually impaired

Haptic contact is usually prohibited when exploring cultural heritage content. This inevitably results in an incomplete experience for the visually impaired as tactile exploration is the dominant substitute of sight. In this paper, we focus on Information and Communication Technologies utilisation to enable cultural heritage content to become more accessible to visually impaired both physically as well as intellectually and thus help foster social inclusion. We have developed three prototype systems that are based on the smart exhibit concept. This involves features that are common in Internet of Things devices such as single board computers, microcontrollers, RFIDs and proximity sensors. We combine these features in a cost-effective manner to produce haptic accessible replicas through 3D digitisation and printing that are further enriched with on-demand modular narrations. More specifically, we present aptos.Exhibit: a multi-user smart exhibition system, aptos.Map: a stand-alone interactive tactile map and aptos.myExhibit: a 3D printed miniatures and narration-based system to enable cultural reserve exploration at users’ own space and time. We describe in detail the functionality of each prototype and discuss on their implementation properties. The cultural content presented through the three prototypes derived from previous 3D digitisation projects of religious monuments located in Northern Greece. Evaluation sessions were organised with 25 visually impaired users who experienced all three systems and provided feedback. The participants opinions and suggestions were collected by using questionnaires and interviews. We present in detail the reported feedback related to the prototypes general assessment, usability, robustness and the overall offered experience of accessing the encapsulated cultural and historical content. We drive our conclusions from their responses in relation to content, interaction and experience. We further discuss on our findings related to enabling visually impaired to interactively access cultural content by fusing technologies such as Internet of Things, 3D digitisation, printing and on-demand narration.

Haptic contact with a walking dog improves human balance during a quiet tandem task with various levels of difficulty

BACKGROUND: When a person walks a dog, information from variables of their own postural control is integrated with haptic information from the dog’s movements (e.g., direction, speed of movement, pulling forces). AIM: We examined how haptic information provided through contact with a moving endpoint (here, the leash of a dog walking on a treadmill) influenced an individual’s postural control during a quiet tandem standing task with and without restricted vision and under various elevations of the support surface (increased task difficulty levels). METHOD: Adults performed a 30-second quiet tandem stance task on a force platform while holding a leash attached to a dog who walked on a treadmill parallel to the force platform. Conditions included: haptic contact (dog and no-dog), vision constraint (eyes open, EO, and eyes closed, EC), and surfaces (4 heights). RESULTS: Interaction between haptic condition and vision showed that contact with the dog leash reduced root mean square (RMS) and mean sway speed (MSS). RMS showed that the highest surface had the greatest rate of sway reduction during haptic contact with EC, and an increase with EO. CONCLUSION: The dog’s movements were used as a haptic reference to aid balance when eyes were closed. In this condition, contact with the dog’s leash reduced the extent of sway variability on the higher surfaces.

A semiotic approach for the teaching of energy: linking mechanical work and heat with the world of objects and events

In this study an effort is made to provide links between the world of physics (theoretical) model about energy transfer with the world of objects and events. Taking into account a holistic approach on energy based on conservation of energy principle and a semiotic approach based on the multimodality of teaching, it was investigated whether a ‘no contact, contact plus change’ pattern can signify in the material world the separation and the interaction between the physical systems and the changes within the systems. An analysis of a teacher’s actions from a physics lesson and a physics textbook concerning mechanical work and heat as mechanisms of energy transfer was made, identifying the no contact, contact + change pattern in speech, written text, bodily acts and inscriptions. It was shown that this semiotic schema has the potential to transfer the physics model about mechanical work and heat to the world of objects and events avoiding ambiguities that create conceptual blending between transformation and transfer of energy. In addition , illustrating the idea of change by movement for mechanical work (position change) and by haptic contact or different colours for heat (temperature change) might be of great importance in teaching activities about transfer of energy.

Comparative Study on Overground Gait of Stroke Survivors With a Conventional Cane and a Haptic Cane.

The conventional cane (single cane) is widely used to promote gait ability of stroke survivors as it provides postural stability by extending the base of support. However, its use can reduce muscle activity in the user's paretic side and cause upper limb neuropathies due to the intermittent and excessive loading of the upper limb. The provision of low magnitude support and speed regulation may result in collective improvement of gait parameters such as symmetry, balance and muscle activation. In this paper, we developed a robotic Haptic Cane (HC) that is composed of a tilted structure with motorized wheels and sensors to allow continuous haptic contact with the ground while moving at a regulated speed, and carried out gait experiments to compare the HC with an Instrumented conventional Cane (IC). The results show that use of the HC involved more continuous ground support force of a comparatively lesser magnitude than the IC, and resulted in greater improvements in the swing symmetry ratio and significant improvements in the step length symmetry ratio. Percentage of Non-Paretic Activity (%NPA) of paretic muscles (vastus medialis obliquus (VMO), semitendinosus (SMT), tibialis anterior (TBA) and gastrocnemius medialis (GCM)) in swing phase was significantly improved by the use of either device at fast speed. However, the use of HC improved %NPA of paretic VMO and SMT more than the use of IC at both preferred and fast speeds. It also significantly improved %NPA of paretic GCM in stance phase. Furthermore, comfortable speed with the HC was higher than with the IC and exhibited better RMS of anteroposterior (AP) tilt. Thus, the developed device with a simple and intuitive mechanism can provide efficient assistance for overground gait of stroke patients with a high possibility of widespread use.

Familiarity with a Tool Influences Peripersonal Space and Primary Motor Cortex Excitability of Muscles Involved in Haptic Contact

Long-term experience with a tool stably enlarges peripersonal space (PPS). Also, gained experience with a tool modulates internal models of action. The aim of this work was to understand whether the familiarity with a tool influences both PPS and motor representation. Toward this goal, we tested in 13 expert fencers through a multisensory integration paradigm the embodiment in their PPS of a personal (pE) or a common (cE) épée. Then, we evaluated the primary motor cortex excitability of proximal (ECR) and distal (APB) muscles during a motor imagery (MI) task of an athletic gesture when athletes handled these tools. Results showed that pE enlarges subjects’ PPS, while cE does not. Moreover, during MI, handling tools increased cortical excitability of ECR muscle. Notably, APB’s cortical excitability during MI only increased with pE as a function of its embodiment in PPS. These findings indicate that the familiarity with a tool specifically enlarges PPS and modulates the cortical motor representation of those muscles involved in the haptic contact with it.

Hybrid Force-Moment Braking Pulse: A Haptic Illusion to Increase the Perceived Hardness of Virtual Surfaces

A perennial challenge when rendering a virtual surface with an impedance-type haptic interface is making the surface feel hard without destroying its realism, since simply increasing its stiffness can lead to instability. One way to increase the perceived hardness without increasing stiffness is to implement a braking pulse or other high-frequency haptic contact event. Traditionally, such events are implemented as a force along the surface normal, which may leave some of the actuators of the haptic device underutilized. We propose a hybrid force-moment braking pulse, which includes a nonrealistic rendered moment to exploit a haptic illusion. We describe how to implement such a hybrid force-moment braking pulse in general, considering the saturation of the haptic device's actuators. In a human-subject study, we find that a virtual surface rendered with these hybrid force-moment braking pulses is perceived as harder than the same virtual surface rendered with a traditional braking pulse, without harming the surface's realism, for the majority of users. The moment-based haptic illusion also has the potential to be superimposed on other types of haptic contact events to improve the perceived hardness.

The Comforting Touch: Tactile Intimacy and Talk in Managing Children’s Distress

ABSTRACTThe present study examines young children’s distress management in situ, focusing on situations of crying and caregivers’ embodied—haptic—soothing responses in preschools in Sweden. The adults’ responses to crying involve embraces, stroking, and patting. Haptic soothing is managed by calibrating the bodily proximity and postural orientations between the participants, including haptic—embracing or face-to-face—formations that are coordinated with particular forms of talk. Haptic formations configure specific affordances for embodied participation by actualizing the availability of tactile, aural, and visual modalities. The interactional organization of soothing in an embracing formation involves: an initiation/invitation and response, submergence of two bodies into a close haptic contact, and coordinated withdrawal from haptic contact. The embracing formation temporarily suspends the requirements for the distressed person to act like a responsive listener and speaker. The caregiver uses the face-to-face formation to reestablish conditions for the child’s interactional co-presence. Data are in Swedish and English translation.

P147 Effects of cTBS on the integration of haptic light fingertip contact and body sway

Question In the present study we aimed to investigate the effects of continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) over the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and how it effects body sway and the integration of light touch. Methods In right-handed young adults, cTBS with an intensity of 80% of the passive motor threshold was applied for 60 s over the left and right Posterior Partial Cortex. Additionally, a sham condition was applied. Target locations were identified using real-time neuronavigation. Participants were tested blindfolded in quiet upright Tandem-Romberg stance before and after each stimulation interval. During these tests they were instructed to actively initiate and cease finger contact with an earth-fixed referent in response to an acoustic signal. Testing was carried out on two non-consecutive sessions. Body sway was recorded in terms of Centre of Pressure (CoP) and trunk kinematics in addition to forces and torques at the contact point. Results The results of 13 healthy right handed participants reveal that cTBS over the right PPC affected postural control. The overall level of body sway was decreased after inhibition, while the effect of Light Touch was still present. Inhibition of the left PPC or sham stimulation did not decrease the overall level of body sway. Conclusion The cause of this effect might be strategies of the motor control system that lead to a co-contraction and thus reducing body sway. However, this does not mean that participants were more stable. Another possible explanation might be that inhibition of the right PPC disrupts processes for state estimation of body sway in spatial reference frames or mechanisms of stability self-exploration (i.e. Zatsiorsky and Duarte, Motor Control, 1999; Ehrenfried et al., Brain Res Cogn Brain Res, 2003; Kiemel et al., J Neurophysiol, 2006).

Disruption of right posterior parietal cortex by continuous Theta Burst Stimulation alters the control of body balance in quiet stance.

Control of body balance relies on the integration of multiple sensory modalities. Lightly touching an earth-fixed reference augments the control of body sway. We aimed to advance the understanding of cortical integration of an afferent signal from light fingertip contact (LT) for the stabilisation of standing body balance. Assuming that right-hemisphere Posterior Parietal Cortex (rPPC) is involved in the integration and processing of touch for postural control, we expected that disrupting rPPC would attenuate any effects of light touch. Eleven healthy right-handed young adults received continuous Theta Burst Stimulation over the left- and right-hemisphere PPC with sham stimulation as an additional control. Before and after stimulation, sway of the blindfolded participants was assessed in Tandem-Romberg stance with and without haptic contact. We analysed sway in terms of the variability of Centre-of-Pressure (CoP) rate of change as well as Detrended Fluctuation Analysis of CoP position. Light touch decreased sway variability in both directions but showed direction-specific changes in its dynamic complexity: a positive increase in complexity in the mediolateral direction coincided with a reduction in the anteroposterior direction. rPPC disruption affected the control of body sway in two ways: first, it led to an overall decrease in sway variability irrespective of the presence of LT; second, it reduced the complexity of sway with LT at the contralateral, non-dominant hand. We speculate that rPPC is involved in the active exploration of the postural stability state, with utilisation of LT for this purpose if available, by normally inhibiting mechanisms of postural stiffness regulation.

Rituals of intimate legal touch: regulating the end-of-game handshake in pandemic culture

This article situates recent attempts to regulate the end-of-game handshake in youth team sports within a broader context of the troubling of touch within pandemic culture. It suggests that the end-of-game handshake is most productively understood as simultaneously: embodied ritual, form of intimate touch, and legal gesture. The analysis invites readers not only to understand the handshake as a complex and meaningful quotidian ritual, but also to see it as an increasingly unstable mode of handwork. The end-of-game handshake, in particular, highlights the clash of values between sport’s imperative to re-establish the normative hetero-masculine haptic order between players at the conclusion of the match, and pandemic culture’s framing of the skin of the palms as dirty and its corresponding requirement, asked of all prudent subjects, that we hygienically manage our everyday haptic contact. In this way, the contested fate of the end-of-game handshake in pandemic culture highlights the multiple ways that touch is understood as a volatile practice demanding regulation.

Frictional Compliant Haptic Contact and Deformation of Soft Objects

This paper is concerned with compliant haptic contact and deformation of soft objects. A human soft fingertip model is considered to act as the haptic interface and is brought into contact with and deforms a discrete surface. A nonlinear constitutive law is developed in predicting normal forces and, for the haptic display of surface texture, motions along the surface are also resisted at various rates by accounting for dynamic Lund-Grenoble (LuGre) frictional forces. For the soft fingertip to apply forces over an area larger than a point, normal and frictional forces are distributed around the soft fingertip contact location on the deforming surface. The distribution is realized based on a kernel smoothing function and by a nonlinear spring-damper net around the contact point. Experiments conducted demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of our approach in real-time haptic rendering of a kidney surface. The resistive (interaction) forces are applied at the user fingertip bone edge. A 3-DoF parallel robotic manipulator equipped with a constraint based controller is used for the implementation. By rendering forces both in lateral and normal directions, the designed haptic interface system allows the user to realistically feel both the geometrical and mechanical (nonlinear) properties of the deforming kidney.

Intra-Personal and Inter-Personal Kinetic Synergies During Jumping.

We explored synergies between two legs and two subjects during preparation for a long jump into a target. Synergies were expected during one-person jumping. No such synergies were expected between two persons jumping in parallel without additional contact, while synergies were expected to emerge with haptic contact and become stronger with strong mechanical contact. Subjects performed jumps either alone (each foot standing on a separate force platform) or in dyads (parallel to each other, each person standing on a separate force platform) without any contact, with haptic contact, and with strong coupling. Strong negative correlations between pairs of force variables (strong synergies) were seen in the vertical force in one-person jumps and weaker synergies in two-person jumps with the strong contact. For other force variables, only weak synergies were present in one-person jumps and no negative correlations between pairs of force variable for two-person jumps. Pairs of moment variables from the two force platforms at steady state showed positive correlations, which were strong in one-person jumps and weaker, but still significant, in two-person jumps with the haptic and strong contact. Anticipatory synergy adjustments prior to action initiation were observed in one-person trials only. We interpret the different results for the force and moment variables at steady state as reflections of postural sway.

At the egg's edge: Lygia Clark's indiscretions

This essay examines the way the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–1988) revisits and reconstructs the scene of birth in works that invoke, directly or indirectly, the figure of the egg. It compares Clark's reconstructions in relation to Jacques Lacan's account of birth, the development of the individuated subject and the normative, patriarchal social relations that subject upholds. It argues that while Lacan's account entails the bracketing of the indistinct and sensuous materiality he refers to as the Real, Clark's works reclaim the Real, creating a very different experience of bearing and being born, and of doing it together in and as a sharing of fluids, membranes, openings/passageways, in and as haptic contact. Constituted by this kind of interpenetration and entanglement, the Real becomes a field of discovery within which the contact of indiscrete flesh, of inorganic and organic matter, is the starting point for re-experiencing and remaking sociality and new modes of life.

Can dancers suppress the haptically mediated interpersonal entrainment during rhythmic sway?

Interpersonal entrainment emerges spontaneously when partners performing rhythmic movements together exchange sensory feedback about the other's movements. In this study, we asked whether couples of expert dancers, non-dancers and mixed couples can suppress the spontaneous haptically mediated inter-personal entrainment when their rhythmic sway is paced by differing metronome tempos. Fifty-four young participants formed three types of couples: nine dancer couples, consisting of individuals with at least eight years systematic practice in traditional Greek dance; nine non-dancer couples, consisting of individuals with no prior experience in dance and nine mixed couples, consisting of one dancer and one novice partner. Partners swayed rhythmically for 60s, at different pacing frequencies (one at 0.25Hz and the other at 0.35Hz) under three haptic contact conditions: no contact between them; light fingertip touch established in the 2nd trial segment (30s); and light fingertip touch released in the 2nd trial segment (30s). Spectral analysis of the antero-posterior center of pressure displacement revealed that light touch increased the deviation of the dominant from the target (pacing) sway frequency, decreased the proportion of the signal's power at the target frequency and increased the coherence between the partners' sway signals (inter-personal coherence). These effects were specific to the mixed group whereas touch interference was weaker in non-dancers and absent in dancers. In addition, the coherence between the trial segments (intra-personal coherence) significantly decreased with touch only for the non-dancer while it remained unchanged for the dancer partner of the mixed group suggesting that the dancer was leading the non-dancer partner. It is concluded that systematic practice with traditional dance can modulate the spontaneous tendency towards haptically mediated interpersonal entrainment.

Embodied social interaction constitutes social cognition in pairs of humans: A minimalist virtual reality experiment

Scientists have traditionally limited the mechanisms of social cognition to one brain, but recent approaches claim that interaction also realizes cognitive work. Experiments under constrained virtual settings revealed that interaction dynamics implicitly guide social cognition. Here we show that embodied social interaction can be constitutive of agency detection and of experiencing another's presence. Pairs of participants moved their “avatars” along an invisible virtual line and could make haptic contact with three identical objects, two of which embodied the other's motions, but only one, the other's avatar, also embodied the other's contact sensor and thereby enabled responsive interaction. Co-regulated interactions were significantly correlated with identifications of the other's avatar and reports of the clearest awareness of the other's presence. These results challenge folk psychological notions about the boundaries of mind, but make sense from evolutionary and developmental perspectives: an extendible mind can offload cognitive work into its environment.