4.6 Article

Conceptualising touch in VR

Journal

VIRTUAL REALITY
Volume 25, Issue 3, Pages 863-877

Publisher

SPRINGER LONDON LTD
DOI: 10.1007/s10055-020-00494-y

Keywords

Immersive virtual reality; Touch; Illusion; Reproduction; Social perspectives; Design

Funding

  1. InTouch project, a European Research Council Consolidator Award [681489]
  2. European Research Council (ERC) [681489] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Data analysis reveals the increasing importance of touch in virtual spaces and shows specific ways in which touch is discussed, implemented, and conceptualized.
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.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available