haptics

‘haptic’ from Greek haptesthai, of or pertaining to touch
(OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY)

As technologies and interfaces become more literally ‘touchy-feely’ and increasingly gesture-based, how might this be mobilised for assisted living, for the elderly, or for the vision impaired? What is the role of the senses and the extended body within human-computer interfaces (HCI)? And how do we use haptics for more fluid and naturalistic human-robot interactions (HRI)?

These are questions which have stayed with me from my doctoral thesis onwards. An article adapted from one chapter was based on a transatlantic 'virtual handshake' between haptic interfaces at MIT in Boston and UCL in London, and was pusblished as ‘Feel the Presence: The Technologies of Touch’ in one of the top globally-ranked social science journals at the time, Environment & Planning D: Society and Space (2006). Also, empirical research based on interviews, focus groups, and my own experiences of haptic interfaces was incorporated in my Ph.D., with haptic interfaces used for the blind at CERTEC and interviews with psychologust Gunnar Jannson (Lund University, Sweden); interviews and demonstartions with a pioneer VR artist and a focus group and demonstration at ReachIn, a company using visual-haptic displays for medical training (both Oslo, Norway), British Telecom Research at Martlesham Heath (UK), and a visit and presentation to MIT's TouchLab with Mandayam Srinivisam (Boston, US). Later with UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded Research Leave spent at Macquarie University in Australia, I developed these strands about touch in the human-computer interface (HCI) and also the use of touch in digital performance for my first monograph, The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects and Technologies (2007).

Phantom haptic
interface in operation

Subsequently I have published numerous journal articles and book chapters on sensory substitution technologies, the role of touch in digital design, and human-robot interactions (HRI) within medical and assisted living contexts. Over the years, these include a chapter ‘Digital Craft, Digital Touch: Haptics and Design’ in Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), a chapter ‘Electric snakes and mechanical ladders? Social presence, domestic spaces, and human-robot interaction’ in New Technologies and Emerging Spaces of Care (Routledge, 2010).

In the past few years I've been looking increasingly at haptics in human-robot interaction (HRI). Publications include

‘Why robot embodiment matters: Questions of disability, race, and intersectionality in the design of social robots’, BMJ: Medical Humanities, Special Issue ‘Imagining Technology Disability Futures’. 10.1136/medhum-2024-013028
‘Why are so many robots white?’ The Conversation. January 26, 2024. https://theconversation.com/why-are-so-many-robots-white-213336
‘Social Robots and the Futures of Affective Touch’, The Senses and Society 18(2), 110-125.Special Issue ‘Affective Technotouch’, Eds. Luna Dolezal & Amelia DeFalco. DOI: 10.1080/17458927.2023.2179231
Paterson, M., Hoffman, G., and Yan Zheng, C. (2023) ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on “Designing the Robot Body: Critical Perspectives on Affective Embodied Interaction”’, ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, Vol. 12(2), Article 14, 1-9. DOI: 10.1145/3594713
‘Inviting Robot Touch (By Design)’, ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 12(2), Article 16, 1-17. In Special Issue edited by M. Paterson, G. Hoffman & C. Yeng. DOI: 10.1145/3549533
Zheng, C. Y., Lacey, C., & Paterson, M. (2020) ‘Affect and embodiment in HRI’ in Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. ACM Press, pp. 667–668.

For the history and theory of sensory substitution technologies, look at the 'Dis/abilities' page. In 2017 I co-edited a special issue ‘Haptic Media Studies’ of New Media and Society with David Parisi and Jason Archer where I published a ‘manifesto’ on inclusive haptic interfaces for users with disabilities.