TACTILE SENSATION AS EMOTION ELICITOR

Abstract

Recent empirical studies have categorized tactile qualities in terms of being rugged, prickly, smooth, tender, etc. The studies manipulated the frequency and amplitude of stimuli and revealed that tactile sensation changed. In this study, the emotional responses to 12 tactile sensations were examined with regard to the manipulation of frequency (4 levels) and amplitude (3 levels) in the pin-array tactile display. The emotional response to tactile sensation was assessed by pleasure and arousal dimension of emotion, and by 6 bipolar scales—6 pairs of texture related adjectives. Based on the empirical results, we described the emotional profile of tactile sensation. Particularly, we adopted Russell’s Circumplex Model in order to define certain areas in emotion space discretely. The emotional responses to 12 tactile sensations appeared to be within a diagonal in emotion space, and the implication thereof is discussed.