Interdisciplinary Insights For Digital Touch Communication

143 Pages·2020·4.857 MB·English

by  Carey Jewitt, Sara Price, Kerstin Mackley, Nikoleta Giannoutsou, Douglas Atkinson

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN
HUMANCOMPUTER INTERACTION
Carey Jewitt · Sara Price
Kerstin Leder Mackley
Nikoleta Yiannoutsou
Douglas Atkinson
Interdisciplinary
Insights for
Digital Touch
Communication
Human–Computer Interaction Series
SpringerBriefs in Human-Computer Interaction
Series editors
Desney Tan, Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA
Jean Vanderdonckt, Louvain School of Management, Université catholique de
Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15580
Carey Jewitt • Sara Price
Kerstin Leder Mackley • Nikoleta Yiannoutsou
Douglas Atkinson
Interdisciplinary Insights
for Digital Touch
Communication
Carey Jewitt Sara Price
UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education
University College London University College London
London, UK London, UK
Kerstin Leder Mackley Nikoleta Yiannoutsou
UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education
University College London University College London
London, UK London, UK
Douglas Atkinson
UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education
University College London
London, UK
ISSN 1571-5035
Human–Computer Interaction Series
ISSN 2520-1670 ISSN 2520-1689
SpringerBriefs in Human-Computer Interaction
ISBN 978-3-030-24566-5 ISBN 978-3-030-24564-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24564-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit
to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if
changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons
licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s
Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to Gunther Kress
(1940–2019).
Acknowledgements
The research reported in this book is undertaken as a part of the InTouch project,
a European Research Council Consolidator Award (Award Number: 681489).
The authors would like to thank the following people and organizations, especially
those people who participated in the InTouch case study research:
Caroline Yan Zhang (Royal College of Art, UK) and Romain Meunier (UCL
Institute of Making) for their facilitation of the rapid prototyping sessions as part of
the Imagining Remote Personal Touch case study.
Dr. Emma Zhang and Professor Adrian Cheok for the loan of a pair of Kissenger
devices used within the Imagining Remote Personal Touch case study.
The members of the Invisible Flock Artist Studio, who are collaborators on the Art
of Remote Contact case study. The Remote Contact Exhibition was supported by
FACT and Community Integrated Care, funded by Arts Council England and Leeds
City Council, with the support of a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, in collaboration
with Prof. Nadia Berthouze (UCL).
Owlet Baby Care, specifically Dr. Milena Adamian and Michelle Dangerfield, for
the loan of four smart sock units to support the InTouch with Baby case study.
Dr. Aikaterini Fotopoulou, Professor Nadia Berthouze and Frederik Brudy, who are
collaborators on the Tactile Emoticon case study, and the UCL Social Science Plus
scheme, who provided additional funding for this collaboration.
Dr. Val Mitchell and Dr. Garrath T. Wilson, Loughborough University School of
Design and Creative Arts, who are collaborators on the Designing Digital Touch
case study.
Evy Samuelsson, InTouch Project administrator.
Lili Golmohammadi, a Doctoral Student on InTouch, particularly for her contribu-
tion to the development and design of the Designing Digital Touch Toolkit.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: Digital Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Touch Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Situating This Book: A Social Revaluing of the Sensory
and Multimodal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 InTouch Digital Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 InTouch Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5.1 Imagining Remote Personal Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5.2 In Touch with Baby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5.3 The Art of Remote Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.4 Tactile Emoticon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.5.5 Designing Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.6 Virtual Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 Interdisciplinary Explorations of Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2 A Multimodal and Sensory Lens on Digital Touch
Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 Interdisciplinary Dialogues of Digital Touch Communication . . . . 26
2.4 Prototyping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3 The Terrain of Digital Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Human-Human Digitally Mediated Touch Communication . . . . . . 42
3.3 Human-Robot and Robot-Human Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.1 Affective and Social Robot Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.2 Teleoperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
ix
x Contents
3.4 Human-Object Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.1 Object/Textile Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.2 Education and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.3 Disability and Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4 Social Norms of Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2 Technology and Changing Social Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3 Digital Touch and Social Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3.1 Touching the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.3.2 Types of Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3.3 The Materiality of Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3.4 Digital Touching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5 Touch Presence, Absence and Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.2 Connecting at a ‘Distance’: Questions of Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.3 Connecting Through Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3.1 Tactile Emoticon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.4 Beyond the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.4.1 Remote Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5 Touch Connection as a Bodily Way of Knowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.5.1 In Touch with Baby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6 Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.2 The Sociotechnical Imaginary as a Design Resource . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.3 The Sociotechnical Imaginary as Methodological Resource . . . . . . 91
6.4 Making Legible Emergent Sociotechnical Imaginaries
of Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.4.1 Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.4.2 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.4.3 Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.5 Generating New Methodological Routes to Imagining Digital
Touch Futures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7 Digital Touch Ethics and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.2 What Is Ethical Touch? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Contents xi
7.3 Touch, Body and ‘Machine’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7.3.1 Touching Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7.3.2 Human Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.3.3 Whose Bodies?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.4 Consent, Trust and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.5 A Note on Study Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
8 Closing Thoughts, Insights and Resources for Digital
Touch Communication Research and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.1 A Social Perspective on Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.2 Insights for Digital Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.2.1 Social Norms and Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.2.2 Touch Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8.2.3 Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8.2.4 The Ethics of Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8.3 Methodologies for Digital Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.4 An Emergent Research and Design Framework for Digital
Touch Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131