Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication

Our emotions do not always surface into our awareness, making it difficult to put them into words. When emotions do not reach our cognitive awareness they can still express themselves as physiological changes in our body, often unperceived by ourselves and by others. To facilitate emotion regulation...

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Autor principal: Papadopoulou, Athina
Altres autors: Knight, Terry
Format: Thesis
Publicat: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Accés en línia:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143332
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author Papadopoulou, Athina
author2 Knight, Terry
author_facet Knight, Terry
Papadopoulou, Athina
author_sort Papadopoulou, Athina
collection MIT
description Our emotions do not always surface into our awareness, making it difficult to put them into words. When emotions do not reach our cognitive awareness they can still express themselves as physiological changes in our body, often unperceived by ourselves and by others. To facilitate emotion regulation and expand the bandwidth of emotion communication, I developed Affective Matter. Affective Matter is a haptic material modality that allows information about the physiological aspects of emotions to be communicated through materials. Through the development of Affective Matter, I aim to enhance intrapersonal and interpersonal affective communication through haptic means and contribute to sensory-based therapies for emotional disorders. In this dissertation, I first review literature pertaining to emotions and body-mind connections, to support the principles of Affective Matter, including the therapeutic impact of touch and controlled breathing, and the affective impact of interpersonal synchrony. I then discuss the development of two types of programmable affective sleeves as examples of Affective Matter, and describe two controlled studies with human subjects testing the psychophysiological impact of each of the sleeves. The combined results of the studies demonstrate a positive correlation between the sleeves’ pace of haptic action and the participants’ breathing rates and arousal levels. Finally, I discuss the development of a user interface for material-mediated emotion communication that translates affective information into personalized material haptic action. Harnessing the sensory properties of matter, this work builds on advances in design, computing, psychology, and materials to propose Affective Matter as a means for human-material therapeutic interaction, where bodies and their material environments can work in synergy to enhance our emotional wellbeing.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1433322022-06-16T03:44:56Z Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication Papadopoulou, Athina Knight, Terry Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture Our emotions do not always surface into our awareness, making it difficult to put them into words. When emotions do not reach our cognitive awareness they can still express themselves as physiological changes in our body, often unperceived by ourselves and by others. To facilitate emotion regulation and expand the bandwidth of emotion communication, I developed Affective Matter. Affective Matter is a haptic material modality that allows information about the physiological aspects of emotions to be communicated through materials. Through the development of Affective Matter, I aim to enhance intrapersonal and interpersonal affective communication through haptic means and contribute to sensory-based therapies for emotional disorders. In this dissertation, I first review literature pertaining to emotions and body-mind connections, to support the principles of Affective Matter, including the therapeutic impact of touch and controlled breathing, and the affective impact of interpersonal synchrony. I then discuss the development of two types of programmable affective sleeves as examples of Affective Matter, and describe two controlled studies with human subjects testing the psychophysiological impact of each of the sleeves. The combined results of the studies demonstrate a positive correlation between the sleeves’ pace of haptic action and the participants’ breathing rates and arousal levels. Finally, I discuss the development of a user interface for material-mediated emotion communication that translates affective information into personalized material haptic action. Harnessing the sensory properties of matter, this work builds on advances in design, computing, psychology, and materials to propose Affective Matter as a means for human-material therapeutic interaction, where bodies and their material environments can work in synergy to enhance our emotional wellbeing. Ph.D. 2022-06-15T13:13:08Z 2022-06-15T13:13:08Z 2022-02 2022-03-09T15:38:19.136Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143332 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Papadopoulou, Athina
Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title_full Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title_fullStr Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title_full_unstemmed Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title_short Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication
title_sort affective matter a haptic material modality for emotion regulation and communication
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143332
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