Workshop topic summary

The tactile sense is a rich sense with strong direct (i.e. coding for affective touch by specialized receptors) and indirect (i.e. pleasant tactile experiences) links to affect. Touch is important in social interactions, such as hugging, and can elicit strong affective responses depending on who is touching, in which context, and to which body part, etc. Furthermore, tactile sensations can be inherently pleasant such as the feel of silk compared to sandpaper.

Considering touch from the view of affective computing poses interesting questions, and  offers avenues for research relating to sensing (affective) tactile gestures, generating tactile sensations using haptic feedback. Think for example of using touch for social communication with virtual agents or social robots, exploring virtual worlds using the tactile sense, using haptic feedback to provide information about ones affective state (e.g through heartbeats), or using tactile and force feedback sensors to infer a user’s affective state during interaction.

In this workshop we discuss the current state of, and the future directions for research into affective touch; to highlight good case studies; to reflect on the methodological issues; and to brainstorm about applications.

Welcome

This workshop on affective touch will be held on, Monday, September 21, 2015 in conjunction with the sixth biannual Humaine Association Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2015).

With the workshop we offer a platform for discussing all issues related to the affective aspects of touch. Those wanting to participate in the workshop are asked to submit original and unpublished work in the form of a short paper (6 pages max.). Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of ACII 2015.

We will be updating this website with all relevant information. Any questions regarding the workshop can be submitted to: workshop [dot] affectivetouch [at] gmail [dot] com.