Eindhoven University of Technology

MASTER

Gender differences in same and opposite sex mediated social touch affective responses to physical contact in a virtual environment

Kosnar, P.

Award date: 2012

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Eindhoven, August 2012

Gender differences in same and opposite sex mediated social touch: Affective responses to physical contact in a virtual

environment.

by Petr Kosnar

identity number 0750914

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science in Human Technology Interaction

Supervisors: dr.ir. Antal Haans prof.dr. Wijnand IJsselsteijn

Keywords: virtual reality, touch, tactile perception, gender, interpersonal behaviour, human interaction, social psychology Table of Contents 1 Introduction...... 3 1.1 Nonverbal communication ...... 4 1.2 Goal of this study ...... 4 1.3 Touch...... 5 1.3.1 The physiology of touch ...... 5 1.3.2 Meanings of touch ...... 7 1.4 Social touch ...... 7 1.4.1 Consequences of interpersonal touch ...... 8 1.4.2 Cultural differences in perception of touch ...... 9 1.4.3 Proximity, personal space and eye-contact...... 9 1.4.4 Gender differences in touching behaviour...... 10 1.5 Mediated social touch...... 12 1.5.1 Presence and telepresence...... 12 1.5.2 Haptic communication devices...... 13 1.6 Immersive virtual environment technology (IVET)...... 13 1.7 Similarities of mediated and non-mediated social (touch) interaction...... 16 2 Research questions and hypothesis...... 18 3 Methodology...... 20 3.1 Experimental design...... 20 3.2 Participants ...... 20 3.3 Materials and Setting ...... 21 3.3.1 Immersive virtual environment...... 21 3.3.2 Vibrotactile vest...... 22 3.4 Measurements...... 24 3.4.1 Affective response measures ...... 24 3.4.2 Physiological measures...... 24 3.4.3 Post-test questionnaire...... 25 3.5 Procedure...... 26 4 Results...... 29 4.1 Manipulation checks and differences between conditions...... 29 4.2 Effects of gender composition...... 30 4.3 Effects of body location ...... 31 5 Discussion...... 33 5.1 Hypothesis testing ...... 33 5.2 Explanation of findings ...... 34

1 5.3 Limitations...... 36 5.4 Conclusion...... 37 Acknowledgments...... 39 References...... 40 Summary ...... 46 Appendix...... 49 1. Within-test questionnaire ...... 49 2. Post-test questionnaire ...... 49 3. Lab session script ...... 55 4. Additional figures and tables ...... 56

2 1 Introduction Nowadays, more and more of our interpersonal interactions are becoming mediated, or in other words, used over a distance. Current communication technologies enable us to communicate over a distance, involving a transfer of visual image and voice (e.g. video calls). This kind of mediated communication is already relatively advanced and rich, especially considering the development in this field from last decades.

If we look a couple of decades back in history, we can see a vivid and rapid development in the field of communication technologies. For better illustration, let us look very briefly at the history of the development of audio- and video-based communication.

The first visual-based remote communication devices consisted of smoke signals and beacons; this was back in prehistoric times. Later in the 6th century BCE, mail came on the scene. It was transferred initially by bearers and messengers, then by pigeons. As development continued, in early 18th century, the heliograph was discovered. For its time, it was a ground-breaking technology that enabled the transfer of messages in real time. The heliograph works on a principle of controlled reflections of a beam of sunlight in a certain direction using a tilting mirror. The reflected flashes of sunlight were captured by another mirror at a remote place, and reflected to the next post, and then in the same manner until its final destination. Later in 19th century, a similar principle was used in communication using signal lamps; except the light source was an artificial lamp, not a beam of sunlight. The first public video phone call between Herbert Hoover and officials of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company occurred in 1927.

If we look at the history of development of audio-based remote communication devices, we can also begin in prehistoric times, mentioning remote communication using drums and horns. In the year 1838 the telegraph was invented which allowed people to transfer text messages (encoded in Morse code) over long distances in real time. The telephone was invented few decades later, in 1876, which allowed people to hear the voice of the other over a distance; a great technological improvement of that time.

With the arrival of Internet in the second half of 20th century, development of a transfer of both audio and video signals became very rapid and rich audio-visual communication became commonly used in home environments and in everyday situations. The quality of transferred signals has improved greatly recently, and video calls and video conferences are becoming inseparable parts of our lives.

As we can see from this brief historic overview of the development of remote communication devices, not only the speed of its delivery, but also the quality of the signal and the richness of the communication has been constantly improved. Today, it is the right time to ask ourselves the question: How can we improve the richness of the communication devices and shift the remote social interaction even closer to face-to-face social interaction? We believe that one of the ways to improve mediated communications is to incorporate more senses into the interaction, so that the amount of interchanged information is increased with the communication cues transferred solely by touch. Previous studies by Chang and colleagues (2001, 2002) also argue that adding the touch channel to the current communication media increases the richness of the social interaction.

3 1.1 Nonverbal communication A substantial portion of human communication is nonverbal. People use many nonverbal cues during face-to-face communication (Knapp & Hall, 2010), such as facial expression, voice intonation, posture and body language, gestures, eye contact, proxemics (the use of physical space; i.e. personal space regulation), and touch. These behaviours are often unintentional and subconscious (Zajonc, 1980).

The current communication devices allow us to employ only limited number of communication cues without substantial technological limitations. These cues, utilized by the current communication technologies are based mostly on vision and hearing. The current technologies allow us to transfer image (including video, not only static image), and sound in high quality, which does not distort or damage the amount and quality of information transferred by these modalities. However, considering current remote communication technologies, transferring a perception of personal space and touch over a distance is neither common, nor thoroughly explored. Nevertheless, several propositions have been developed, including prototypes of haptic communication devices. These prototypes will be described and discussed later.

In the current study, we focus on touch in mediated (remote) social interaction. Previous research indicates that the richness of current communication devices can be improved by including the transfer of touch to the interaction (Chang, O’Modhrain, Jacob, Gunther, & Ishii, 2002; Chang, Resner, Koerner, Wang, & Ishii, 2001; Brave & Dahley, 1997). First of all, we need to understand the social effects of touch, and to understand how touching can affect interpersonal communication. Second, we need to understand how we can use this knowledge for improving current communication devices.

1.2 Goal of this study Since we focus on mediated communication (i.e. remote social interaction), we needed to choose an appropriate tool for studying social interactions involving touch, and other communication channels such as hearing and vision, from several technologies. We have chosen the immersive virtual environment technologies (IVETs) as such a tool. IVET provides us with the possibility of conducting an experiment simulating the social interactions with the full experimental control, in fully standardized scenario (i.e. the environment, scenes, and behaviour of virtual persons in the IVET are computer-generated and thus fully controlled and completely identical for each participant. In contrast, the behaviour of a human confederate in an experiment conducted in a real environment could not be fully controlled, e.g. in terms of nonverbal behaviour). The goal of this study is to describe social interactions in the virtual environments, and find out whether affective responses to touch in mediated situations are similar to those in non-mediated situations. Demonstrating the similarity in patterns of responses to touch in mediated and non-mediated environments would provide evidence that mediated touch is perceived in similar way as non-mediated touch. To be able to identify the similarity in mediated and non-mediated environments, we need a variable with highly predictable effects in non-mediated situations, and test it in mediated situations. For this purpose we have chosen gender differences in touch behaviour, since numerous studies have demonstrated a number of clear social effects in this field in non-mediated situations (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Floyd, 2000). Comparing our results to these findings allow us to conclude to what extent the social effects of touch in mediated situations are similar to those in non-mediated situations, and therefore

4 discuss possibilities of incorporating touch into remote communication to effectively improve remote interpersonal communication.

For better understanding of our line of reasoning, and background theory supporting our study, in the following chapters we describe relevant aspects of touch, interpersonal communication, sex differences in touch behaviour, mediated social interactions, and using IVET as a tool for conducting research in social psychology.

The current research is likely to yield valuable insights, which are especially timely and relevant considering the current extensive development of touch devices and potential of involving touch in communication media. Moreover, current research is important both for innovation in communication media as well as to bring new knowledge into field of touch psychology. Specifically, gender differences in remote social interaction involving touch devices can be further applied as input to research in various directions, including persuasive technologies using remote communication, remote psychotherapy (or e-therapy), or remote education. The study also investigates possible mediators of remote communication media involving touch (such as gender effects, and comparison of touch avoidance and body accessibility in a virtual environment).

1.3 Touch According to Aristotle, touch is one of five traditional human senses, alongside vision, hearing, smell and taste. It is the first sense humans develop (Montagu, 1971), and the last one they lose before death. Touch allows us to perceive the external world in the most fundamental level (e.g. Barnett, 1972; Gottlieb, 1971). Touch sensitivity develops in babies already after about 6 weeks in the womb – earlier than eyes, ears or any other sense organs (Montagu, 1986). The organ used for sensation of touch – the skin – is the largest (covering a total area of over 1,6m2 in an adult person) and is the oldest sense organ (Field, 2001; Montagu, 1971). Skin also protects us from mechanical, thermal and chemical threats of the environment. However, skin does not serve only as a protecting cover for our muscles; we are continuously using our skin to perceive vast amounts of inputs from our environment, such as information about size, weight, texture, temperature, structure and other characteristics of objects that we touch. Moreover, we sense air flow in an environment, and localize and recognize objects that we grab. Additionally, we use the skin not only to receive information about the objects around us, and environment that we live in but we also use skin to socially interact with people around; to communicate feelings, and emotions.

1.3.1 The physiology of touch Through the sense of touch we can perceive different types of stimuli such as vibrations, pressure, temperature, pain, and position. Sensory inputs of touch are processed in two separate neural systems – the cutaneous system (inputs from the outside of the body – e.g. pressure or vibration applied on the skin), and kinesthetic system (inputs from the inside of the body – e.g. muscles tension, or joints positions) (Loomis & Lederman, 1986).

The cutaneous system refers to somatosensory receptors lying mostly in the skin, and also in organs and muscles. These receptors can be of different types, each sensitive to different kinds of stimuli – temperature, pain, mechanical deformation, and indentation (Brewster & Brown, 2004). Thermoreceptors are sensitive to the temperature changes on the skin. Nociceptors are sensitive to pain. Mechanoreceptors are sensitive to the mechanical changes (deformation) of the skin, such as stretching, vibrations, and pressure. The sensation abilities 5 of the skin are not equal across the whole body. The various skin-areas have different spatial acuity, and sensitivity to tactile and thermal sensation (Kladzky & Lederman, 2003). The sensitivity is higher on body locations where the density of receptors is higher (e.g. lips, finger endings), than on body location where the density of receptors is lower (e.g. back, legs, stomach).

Spatial acuity refers to the ability to distinguish between two cutaneous stimuli applied simultaneously to the skin – the distance between the points is described as a two-point threshold. The two-point threshold is determined by the size of the receptive fields and the extent of their overlap, and can vary from 1-2 mm (tip of tongue, tip of index finger) to over 60-70 mm (neck, back; Mather, 2008). If we pinch the skin on two points that are closer than the two-point threshold at the body location, then both pinches are not recognized separately, but are perceived as one sensory input (Figure 1). For detailed reviews of cutaneous perception see, e.g. Loomis & Lederman (1986), Kladzky & Lederman (2003), and Johnson (2001).

Figure 1 – Spatial acuity, differences on various body locations (adapted from Mather, 2008)

The kinesthetic system refers to mechanoreceptors receiving information about the position of joints, muscle tension and muscle length. These cues together build up a perception of movement and position of limbs, and also about the size and weight of objects we touch (Clark & Horch, 1986). People are aware of the position and movement of their limbs not only thanks to kinesthetic system, but also vision (seeing the limb) and the information from the brain’s own motor commands (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2006).

Haptic perception (or tactual perception) refers to the perception of cutaneous and kinesthetic information combined (e.g. Loomis & Lederman, 1986; Kladzky & Lederman, 2003). Talking about touch, we are actually meaning haptic perception in most cases, since the kinaesthetic and cutaneous systems are usually involved in a combination.

6 1.3.2 Meanings of touch According to the classification revealed by Jones and Yarbrough (1985) we can differentiate between 18 different meanings of touch, grouped in seven categories: positive affect touches, playful touches, control touches, ritualistic touches, task-related touches, accidental touches, and hybrid (mixed) touches.

Positive affect touches occur usually between persons in a close relationship and communicate support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual interest, and affection. Playful touches always involve a play signal which indicates that the touch is not supposed to be taken seriously. Playful touches communicate affection (lightening an interaction, usually in unserious situations). Control touches are usually initiated by a person attempting to influence another individual. Control touches communicate a desire to achieve compliance, attention-getting, but may also used to announce a response. The so-called Midas touch is a well-known example of such a control touch, and will be discussed in more detail in section 1.7. Ritualistic touches refer to touches used in greetings and departures. Task-related touches are deliberately dependent on a certain task. Accidental touches are unintentional touches, usually with no proper meaning. Hybrid touches include a combination of multiple touches described above (Jones & Yarbrough, 1985).

For the purpose of the current study, positive affect touches, control touches, and ritualistic touches are the most important.

1.4 Social touch As we might find evident from the previous section, a touch is not only a sense used for exploring our environment, but it is also used for social interaction. Physical interpersonal interaction is described as social touch, and refers to the situations when people touch each other. Social touch can be intentional (e.g. shaking hands) or unintentional (e.g. accidentally brushing against one another in a crowd). However, not all meanings of touch are used in communication. In communication, touch is used intentionally – to send a message to the receiver. For this process to be effective, the message should have a shared or symbolic meaning for both the sender and the receiver of the message (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2006). Considering the classification of meanings of touch by Jones and Yarbrough (1985), we can see that mostly positive affect touches, control touches, and ritualistic touches can be communicative.

Touch is used to communicate feelings, emotions, intimacy, and social interactions. Several studies describe touch between partners as a mean of interpersonal communication in romantic relationships, or even more explicitly – as indivisible complement of love (e.g. Montagu & Matson, 1979; Montagu, 1971). One does not need much imagination to realize the importance and widespread usage of touch in a romantic relationship.

Social touch is described as one of the fundamental human needs (Thayer, 1982). Many authors concur, describing touch as an important part of social interaction (e.g. Jones & Yarbrough, 1985; Montagu & Matson, 1979; Brave, Nass, & Sirinian, 2001). Touch has been found beneficial for development of infants, for instance to calm them in pain or discomfort (Bellieni, et al., 2006). Lack of touch during early infant development can cause touch deprivation, resulting in delayed development of cognitive skills and neurodevelopment (MacLean, 2008). In later age, touch contributes to social development of children, and

7 becomes an important communication cue (Thayer, 1982; Jones & Yarbrough, 1985). For a more detailed review of effects of touch on development of humans see Field (2010).

1.4.1 Consequences of interpersonal touch Touch can have positive, as well as negative emotional consequences. By touching people we can express love, care, intimacy, encouragement, but also power, or aggression. Many studies disclosed various social effects of touch, causing different social responses. This section describes some of them that are relevant to our study.

Crusco and Wetzel (1984) conducted a study, examining the effects of a brief touch initiated by a waitress in a restaurant on the height of tips she received from customers. Researchers compared three conditions – a waitress touched a customer after they received their bill either on the hand, on the shoulder, or did not touch them at all. The results indicated that tipping rate was significantly higher in both touch conditions including touch compared to the no- touch condition. This effect has been labelled the Midas touch effect. This effect, describing an increase in person’s altruistic behaviour and willingness to comply with a request, has been repeated several times with similar results in different conditions and settings – e.g. asking people to look after a dog (Guéguen & Fisher-Lokou, 2002), asking a bus driver for a free ride (Guéguen & Fisher-Lokou, 2003), or in multiple studies simulating the situation when a confederate ‘accidentally’ drops some items in front of a subject person, and after such an ‘accident’, subjects’ willingness to help with picking up dropped items was measured (e.g. Goldman & Fordyce, 1983; Guéguen & Fisher-Lokou, 2003). In another study, Fischer and colleagues (1976) instructed librarians to return library cards to some students, and when they do so, also touch palms of some of the students. Other students were not touched. Then, students were asked to evaluate the library. Evaluation of those who were touched was found more favourable than those who were not touched. Interestingly, none of the students could remember having been touched by the library clerk.

The positive effects of haptic interpersonal interaction have also been reported in medical settings. Particularly, Whitcher and Fischer (1979) have demonstrated that the simple act of nurses touching (female) patients a day before operation can result in a decrease of stress (measured by subjective self-reported stress levels of patients, and objectively by physiological measures of heart rate and blood pressure). However, it is necessary to note that the effect was demonstrated only on female participants, whereas male participants demonstrated inverse effect; this finding suggests that there are substantial gender differences in perception of touch.

Other researchers, Eaton, Mitchell-Bonair, and Friedmann (1986) found also a positive effect of touch on eating behaviour of elderly people. The elderly, who were touched by the nurses who were caring for them, and encouraging them to eat, consumed more calories and proteins.

In summation, we can conclude that interpersonal touch can have many positive effects on people’s behaviour and well-being. For a detailed review of potential effects of haptic social interactions, see Gallace & Spence (2010), and Field (2010).

Although most studies have investigated and reported on the positive outcomes, few studies have been investigating negative effects of interpersonal touch (Major, 1981; Walker, 1971). Negative consequences are caused most frequently when touch is used in an inappropriate

8 context (e.g. touch perceived as being sexually harassing). These cases often result in negative affective valence, offence or aggressive reaction (Gallace & Spence, 2010).

To complete the list of possible consequences of touch, we must add that interpersonal touch can affect not only human behaviour, but also physiological processes, such as a heart rate (e.g. Nilsen & Vrana, 1998; Vrana & Rollock, 1998), and blood pressure (Grewen, Anderson, Girdler, & Light, 2003). Depending on context, interpersonal touch can increase or decrease heart rate and blood pressure. Specifically, most authors agree that heart rate decreases after a touch when the touch is performed by a familiar person, and in a known context. In contrast, heart rate increases when the touch is performed by a stranger, or in unfamiliar, ambiguous, or threatening context (Nilsen & Vrana, 1998; Vrana & Rollock, 1998).

1.4.2 Cultural differences in perception of touch Perception of touch varies remarkably between members of different cultures. Hall (1966) has described two categories of cultures: „contact“ (e.g. Arabs, Latin Americans, southern Europeans) and „noncontact“ cultures (e.g. Asians, North Americans, northern Europeans). According to Hall’s study (1966), people from „contact“ cultures prefer immediate nonverbal communication more than those from „noncontact“ cultures. Hall does not describe solely touch, but also other nonverbal communication cues, such as interpersonal distance and body orientation.

Numerous studies have compared touch, perception of personal space and other nonverbal behaviour across different cultures (for a review see Remland, Jones, & Brinkman, 1995). However, the results of these studies are often incomparable and hard to generalize, due to differences in methodologies, methods of recruitment of participants, and numbers of participants. To conclude, cultural differences in perception of touch are likely to be present, and should be taken into account when investigating a role of touch as a means of interpersonal communication. However, the particular specification of the difference may be still rather incomprehensible.

1.4.3 Proximity, personal space and eye-contact From the nature of physiology of touch, direct touch interaction can occur only on a limited distance (within arm's reach). Therefore, two touching persons must be at most on arm’s length distant from each other. This distance might be perceived as invasion of privacy by (at least) one of the actors of this scene.

The study of personal space around people is called proxemics. Groundwork of proxemics are based on studies by Hall (1959) and Sommer (1959) who described how people maintain a certain interpersonal distance when interacting (i.e. so called personal space). However, the size of the personal space can be affected by several factors such as culture (Hall, 1966), race (Rosegrant & McCroskey, 1975), age (Willis, 1966), relationships between persons (Evans & Howard, 1973), and nonverbal expressions of intimacy, such as eye-contact (also referred to as mutual gaze) (Argyle & Dean, 1965).

Interaction of eye-contact and proxemic behaviour has been described by Argyle and Dean (1965) as equilibrium theory. Their model describes eye-contact and proxemic behaviour as inversely related to each other. In particular it means that eye-contact increases intimacy, which is decreased by expansion of personal space, and vice versa. Scherer and Schiff (1973) specified that high level of mutual gaze (eye-contact) is perceived as intimate. The practical 9 example may be demonstrated in a crowded train, when personal space of each passenger is invaded by other passengers around (increasing intimacy), people are not likely to maintain eye-contact (decreasing intimacy).

As it was shown later, eye-contact can influence people even if they are not necessarily aware of it (Zajonc, 1980). Moreover, numerous researchers have shown that effect of eye-contact is dependent on gender (e.g. Argyle & Cook, 1976; Adler & Iverson, 1974). Focusing on gender differences, we can find large number of social effects of touch, which are perceived differently for men and women. The next chapter focuses on these differences in touching behaviour between men and women.

1.4.4 Gender differences in touching behaviour Gender differences in touching behaviour, and the perception of touch have been investigated in numerous studies, in various contexts, and using various methodologies (e.g. Henley, 1973; Major, 1981; Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Nguyen, Heslin, & Nguyen, 1975; Floyd, 2000). However, in comparison to studies investigating cultural differences, the various studies on sex differences correspond in their results and interpretation. Therefore, we can make more conclusive inferences about gender differences.

Gender differences in touch perception are closely related to gender differences in invasion of privacy (Derlega, Lewis, Harrison, Winstead, & Costanza, 1989) and personal space (Valentine & Ehrlichman, 1979), the body location being touched (e.g. Jourard, 1966; Hutchinson & Davidson, 1991; Nguyen, Heslin, & Nguyen, 1975), marital status (Nguyen, Heslin, & Nguyen, 1976), the person performing the touch (stranger, family member, friend) (e.g. Hutchinson & Davidson, 1991; Jourard, 1966), and touch avoidance attitudes (Andersen & Leibowitz, 1978).

Let us have a closer look at some findings that are the most important and relevant for the current study. Results in the studies are usually reported separately for males and for females. In some cases, findings are generalized for same-sex dyads and opposite-sex dyads.

According to Heslin and colleagues (1983), same-sex dyads perceived a touch from the other as more unpleasant. Moreover, responses showed a difference for touch initiated by a stranger and touch initiated by a familiar person; touch performed by a stranger was rated as more unpleasant. For males, the touch from both a stranger of opposite sex and a friend of opposite sex was perceived as pleasant. Moreover, Nguyen and colleagues (1976) specified that married males and married females generally consider touch as more pleasant, loving and friendly than unmarried people. Moreover, married women perceived touch to their sexual body locations as less friendly and more sexual than men, but attributed less sexuality to touch to the rest of their bodies. Married men attributed less love and pleasantness to sexual touching than married women. However, for females, the touch from a stranger of opposite sex was perceived as more unpleasant than from a friend of opposite sex. In general, opposite-sex touches are preferred over same-sex touches (Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Major, 1981).

Same sex-touch was found less positive and less expected for males, than for females in numerous studies (e.g. Derlega, et al., 1989; Floyd, 2000; Remland & Jones, 1988). Females rated male others as more attractive when they perform a touch (Major & Heslin, 1982). In several studies males also displayed less tactile contact with males, than females did with

10 females (Derlega, et al., 1989; Floyd, 2000). The explanation may be provided by cultural norms – men in western culture (where most of the research was conducted) are more likely to be seen as homosexual when they touch other men, than females touching other females. This decreases male’s willingness to touch other males, especially in public. Therefore we can conclude that women feel more comfort with same-sex touch than men (Larsen & LeRoux, 1984).

In another studies, Henley (1973) and Major (1981) agreed in their findings that males touch females more than females touch males. According to Henley (1973, 1977), touch (also) communicates status, power and dominance. Touch indicates closeness and solidarity when it is used reciprocally. If it is used non-reciprocally, it represents status and power. Additionally, touch performed by a man towards a woman is found to be interpreted as demonstrating sexual interest, whereas in the other direction, this is not necessarily the case.

Figure 2 – Rated pleasantness of being touched by various other people (the darker an area the more the touch is pleasant). (Adapted from Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983) Several studies have been conducted on investigating body accessibility (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, Nguyen, 1983; Jourard, 1966; Hutchinson & Davidson, 1991; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975). In these studies, touches applied to different body locations were compared in reported comfort, pleasantness, or aversion to touch (e.g. as depicted in Figure 2). Most authors agreed that several public body locations can be distinguished, more public parts where touch is perceived as not invasive and more comfortable (e.g. upper arm, shoulder, neck, back) and

11 more private body locations where touch is perceived as invasive and discomforting (e.g. chest, stomach, head).

Regarding personal space, several experiments demonstrated that women maintain smaller personal space than men (Adler, & Iverson, 1974; Aiello, 1977). Furthermore, women are also more likely to withdraw when their personal space is invaded, than men do (Henley, 1977).

To conclude this overview of the sex differences in touch perception, it is important to highlight that the differences in touching behaviour between men and women are strong and similar across studies.

1.5 Mediated social touch As we have described in the previous section, touch has a strong social meaning, and affects interpersonal relationships and perceived comfort in numerous ways. The richness of mediated social interaction is substantially limited by the technologies currently being used, as they rely predominantly on vision and hearing, lacking touch. This limitation is especially essential with regard to the increasing trend of using mediated communication rather than unmediated. This trend is supported by people communicating more with other people from different continents and countries, and also by the increasing number of affordable smart phones, computers and other hi-tech devices that allow rich audio-visual communication to people even if they are not technology savvy.

In this environment, improvements in communication technologies are likely to affect a vast number of people who can benefit from it in terms of easier and smoother communication of emotions, and feelings, establishing a feeling of connectedness between two people, recovery from stress, and co-operation over a distance. Effectiveness and efficiency of communication media for accomplishing different tasks (i.e. the extent to which medium facilitates immediate feedback, contextual and nonverbal cues, and multiple channels) is labelled as media richness (Daft & Lengel, 1986). According to several authors, the amount of information transferred during the communication, and richness of the interaction can be increased by incorporating touch in the interaction (e.g. Brave & Dahley, 1997; Chang, O’Modhrain, Jacob, Gunther, & Ishii, 2002; Rovers & van Essen, 2004).

Mediated social touch is defined as “the ability of one actor to touch another actor over a distance by means of tactile or kinaesthetic feedback technology” (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2006). There are several benefits of mediated social touch. In addition to the increase in the amount of information and richness, as we have already mentioned, mediated social touch can also facilitate intimate interactions that are not possible to carry out using other communication channels (vision, hearing) (e.g. Brave, Nass, & Sirinian, 2001; Brave & Dahley, 1997; Mueller, et al., 2005).

1.5.1 Presence and telepresence Rich interpersonal interaction provides users a sense of social presence, such as the experience of being together (Biocca, Harms, & Burgoon, 2003). If users use rich communication technologies, this sense of social presence is easier to establish, and the experience of users is closer to face-to-face interaction. In this context, we discuss the terms presence, and telepresence, since these terms are relevant to the topics discussed further. Presence is defined as user’s subjective sensation of “being there” in a scene depicted by a 12 medium (Barfield, Zeltzer, Sheridan, & Slater, 1995), or as “a perceptual illusion of non- mediation” (Lombard & Ditton, 1997), or as “a state of consciousness, the (psychological) sense of being in the virtual environment” (Slater & Wilbur, 1997). Telepresence is defined as “the perception of presence within a physically remote or simulated site” (Draper, Kaber, & Usher, 1998), or as “the ideal of sensing sufficient information about the teleoperator and task environment, and communicating this to the human operator in a sufficiently natural way, that the operator feels physically present at the remote site” (Sheridan, 1989, p. 487- 488).

1.5.2 Haptic communication devices Several concepts and prototypes of communication devices involving tactile or haptic displays have been developed. Most of these devices aimed to explore possibilities and effects of a given haptic technology, to investigate ability of these technologies to transfer emotions over a distance, provide sense of presence with a distant person (Gaver, 2002), or to provide a sense of connectedness (IJsselsteijn, van Baren, & van Lanen, 2003).

Tactile or haptic displays can incorporate one (or both) of two types of feedback – tactile feedback, or kinaesthetic feedback. Tactile feedback devices stimulate cutaneous receptors (in the skin), in a way that simulates touch on the skin. This stimuli can be in form of an electric current impulse (electrotactile actuators), mechanical vibration (vibrotactile actuators), non-vibrating mechanical skin deformation (shape memory metals or hydraulics), or thermal effect (temperature actuators). Kinaesthetic feedback devices stimulate receptors of kinaesthetic system, i.e. receptors receiving information about the position of joints, muscle tension and muscle length. In other words, kinaesthetic system monitors the position and orientation of limbs and other parts of the body, and kinaesthetic feedback devices usually provide a force applied to the limbs. Actuators are either in the Figure 3 – The PHANToM Arm (adapted from form of an exoskeleton (Bouzit, Burdea, Massie & Salisbury, 1994) Popescu, & Boian, 2002), single-point force- feedback, such as the PHANToM (see Figure Figure 3 – The PHANToM Arm (adapted from Massie & Salisbury, 1994) (Massie & Salisbury, 1994), force-feedback arms (Van der Linde, Lammertse, Frederiksen, & Ruiter, 2002), or haptic surfaces, also known as shape displays (Iwata, Yano, Nakaizumi, & Kawamura, 2001).

For the purpose of the current study, tactile actuators, and in particular – vibrotactile actuators are the most relevant.

1.6 Immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) We have already mentioned an importance of establishing a feeling of social presence, and then we have stated that incorporating touch into the interaction brings an improvement in 13 richness of the interaction. There is still a question that we have not answered so far – how to combine rich interaction involving multiple channels – namely vision, hearing, and touch, and how to use this setting for providing a rich social interaction over a distance. The answer to this question may be the use of the immersive virtual environment technology (IVET).

Virtual environment (VE) technologies, or virtual reality systems (VRs), emerged during 1990s (Biocca & Levy, 1995) and after an initial hype, that have subsequently disappeared due to unfilled promises, VE has developed to the current form which allows users to create “acceptable” reproductions of real objects or environments for training, entertainment or design purposes (Gutiérrez, Vexo, & Thalmann, 2008). Moreover, immersive virtual reality technology was found useful as a methodological tool for research in social psychology (Blascovich, et al., 2002). These recent developments suggest that haptic communication can be effectively used in immersive virtual environments (IVEs), particularly for their possibility of combining haptic feedback with audio-visual communication cues.

Immersive virtual environment technologies are based on real-time graphics displayed in a stereoscopic display (usually a head-mounted display), used to produce the illusion of 3D vision in an artificial, computer-generated environment. Furthermore, visual input is enriched with audio (usually displayed through stereoscopic or surround headphones). Interaction is based on tracking systems monitoring one’s position in the virtual environment and orientation of the head (i.e. direction of sight). Additional devices can be used (such as gloves tracking hand movements and allowing to manipulate objects in the VE), but this basic description of the IVET concept is sufficient for the purpose of the current study.

There are two basic aspects of an experience in the VE – immersion and presence. Immersion is a characteristic of physical configuration of the user interface and the virtual environment (Gutiérrez, Vexo, & Thalmann, 2008). The classification of the VE technologies depends on how much the user perceives the real world around the virtual one; it can be either fully immersive (such as IVET described above, using a head-mounted display), semi-immersive (e.g. large projection screens), or non-immersive (e.g. desktop-based VE) (Gutiérrez, Vexo, & Thalmann, 2008). Presence has been already defined in a previous section. In this place, we just add an improved definition of social presence for the context of a VE – “Social presence refers to the degree to which the user (e.g. the participant) believes that he or she is in the presence of and interacting with another veritable human being and that the behaviours of virtual humans within IVEs represent the actions of real individuals in the physical world in real time” (Blascovich, et al., 2002).

Srinivasan and Basdogan (1997) indicate in their research that traditional audio-visual VEs in combination with haptic feedback becomes more immersive. This finding yields an assumption that haptic feedback can increase user‘s sense of presence (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2006).

From a methodological point of view, IVET provides several advantages in conducting research in social psychology by solving 3 methodological problems: the experimental control–mundane realism trade-off (the higher the mundane realism, the lower the experimental control, see Figure 4), lack of replication (insufficiently documented details in the experiment, including very minor details cause impossibility of replication in totally identical conditions), and unrepresentative sampling (participants in many studies are recruited from college students, not from a real population, for the practical reasons – they are nearby, and easily contacted) (Blascovich, et al., 2002). To solve these 3 problems, IVET 14 seems to be applicable: experiment conducted in the IVE provide high mundane realism, while maintaining high experimental control, allow to replicate experiments easily just by running the same experiment again, with all its details, and help to carry out the experiment at different places concurrently, or even in home environment (in future), which helps with difficulties with recruiting representative samples of population (Blascovich, et al., 2002).

Figure 4 – (a) The experimental control–mundane realism trade-off and the impact of (b) multimedia graphics and (c) immersive virtual environ- ment technology on this trade-off. (from Blascovich et al., 2002)

Furthermore, IVET is highly advantageous in experiments requiring the confrontation of the participant with another human being. Using IVET, we can use computer-generated, fully controlled and standardized human character in our experiment; otherwise we would need to use a human confederate instead, which could cause several problems. Being human, these confederates show a less-than-perfect replication of their own behavioural script from one session to the next. Some of this noise is just random fluctuations in their acting or performance, but also non-random effects may occur, such as effects of interacting with a more attractive participant – inadvertently smiling more, or blushing, or having pupil dilation. These behaviours are hard to control, and would affect results in an experiment, especially in an experiment studying the effects of touch. Moreover, by definition, the confederate is not blind to the condition they are in (e.g. touching someone or not). Thus, they may inadvertently influence the outcome through subtly changing their behaviour based on such knowledge (i.e. experimenter bias). Using the IVET makes it possible to circumvent these problems (Blascovich, et al., 2002).

Blascovich and colleagues (2002) also emphasize that creating stimuli in the IVE “costs less, requires less effort, and quite importantly, provides a greater degree of experimental control than creating stimuli based on the actual presence of others” (p. 103).

In principle, basically anything can be modelled in the IVE. The user can see any natural or unnatural scenarios, and can experience feeling of telepresence at places where no human has ever stepped. Obviously, we can also display other persons in the IVE, so that we can simulate interpersonal social interactions with the artificial representation of a human. Considering the representation of a virtual human in the VE, we distinguish between an embodied agent and an avatar. An embodied agent is a virtual representation controlled entirely by a computer program. An avatar is a virtual representation of a real person, who controls it (at least partially).

15 1.7 Similarities of mediated and non-mediated social (touch) interaction Very little research has been done in comparison of mediated and non-mediated touch interactions and psychological effects of remote haptic communication. Bailenson, Beall, and Loomis (2001) studied proxemics in the IVE, testing specific inverse relationship between mutual gaze, intimacy and interpersonal distance, described in equilibrium theory (Argyle & Dean, 1965). Results showed that participants maintained more space around avatars than they did around similarly sized non-human objects. Additionally, personal space maintained by female participants was larger when avatars engaged them in eye contact than with avatars that did not. These findings were in compliance with expectations based on previous research in real environment.

Considering research on mediated social touch, the first study (Haans, de Nood, & IJsselsteijn, 2007) provided preliminary evidence that the gender differences in same and opposite sex touch that are present in unmediated situations, may also be present in mediated situations. In that study, Haans and colleagues (2007) caused male and female participants to believe that they were being touched remotely through a vest equipped with vibrotactile actuators on different body locations by either a male or female confederate that the participant was made to believe was remotely located. The gender manipulation was done only through mentioning the name of the (fictional) confederate (i.e. ‘William’ or ‘Julia’). However, the results of this earlier work were not conclusive. Although the qualitative comments testified to a male homophobic response (in line with e.g. Derlega, et al., 1989; Floyd, 2000; Remland & Jones, 1988), and the quantitative results were in the expected direction, the results did not reach significance. Moreover, affective responses to the initiated touches varied with respect to different body locations; however, these effects were also not significant. We discuss that the reason for the lack of significance in this research might have been caused by the weak manipulation of the confederate’s gender (only the male or female name of the interacting person indicated their gender). Another reason might have been the lack of richness of the social interaction – especially the lack of visual cues in the communication.

Haans and IJsselsteijn (2009) further studied whether the Midas touch phenomenon is replicable in the conditions with mediated touch. They simulated the touch via an arm strap with a electromechanical actuators, and observed participants‘ willingness to help in situation similar to previous midas touch studies. Authors found that helping behaviour was increased in conditions involving (mediated) touch, but in their initial study this effect was not statistically significant. However, the size of the effect was comparable to previous Midas touch studies involving non-mediated touch (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2009). A recent replication of this work has shown a significant effect of the mediated Midas touch (de Bruijn, 2010).

In the current study we are replicating and extending the first study of mediated social touch conducted by Haans and colleagues (2007), in order to demonstrate whether real and mediated social touch lead to equivalent social outcomes. We aim to demonstrate these aspects on the differences in affective responses to same sex or opposite sex touch, and on the differences in responses to touch on different body locations. With the goal to improve the study by Haans and colleagues (2007) we considered the advantages and possibilities of IVET in conducting a research in social psychology (as discussed in previous section), and carried out the experiment in the IVE. This technology provides us with a realistic experience of the participants in our experiment, so that we can observe their actual reactions in the interaction situations, which is a remarkable improvement in comparison to previous research 16 of non-mediated social touch (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Floyd, 2000, Jourard, 1966; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975) where participants’ actual behaviour was merely studied directly. Considering the measurements of dependent variables, we used self-reported questions describing the affective responses, answered right after the interaction (similarly to the study by Haans and colleagues, 2007), and furthermore, we also measured the skin conductance responses (SCR), as an objective physiological response to the stimuli. In our experiment, participants experienced a multimodal interaction (i.e. involving vision, hearing, and touch) with a virtual humanlike character, and incorporating stronger manipulation of gender of the interacting person (we indicated their gender by male or female name, voice, and look). Moreover, to enrich the interaction in our experiment, we incorporated also a feeling of proximity (which is present in non-mediated touch interaction, from the nature of interpersonal touch), since the participants can see the other person approaching them to a close distance in the IVE. We also improved the apparatus simulating a touch (vibrotactile actuators) to provide more realistic tactile feedback than those used in the previous research. Furthermore, we counterbalanced order of the interactions, to eliminate the order effect described in the previous research by Haans and colleagues (2007).

17 2 Research questions and hypothesis To illustrate the similarities of mediated social touch and non-mediated social touch, we need a variable with highly predictable effects in unmediated situations. Gender differences in affective responses to touch, and differences in affective responses to touch applied to different body location serve well for this purpose, as the effects of these two aspects are well described in numerous studies in non-mediated situations. (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Floyd, 2000).

In this section we will explain the main objective of the current study; the central research question is whether the social effects of touch interactions in mediated situations are comparable to those in non-mediated situations. To clarify this topic we state two research questions:

RQ1: What are the differences in affective responses to same vs. opposite sex mediated social touch for males vs. females?

RQ2: What are the differences in affective responses to mediated social touch on different body locations?

Our expectations regarding the first research question are based on the previous research that has been conducted in both real environments, and mediated situations. Previous research suggests that gender differences in affective responses to touch are present in non-mediated situations (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Derlega, Lewis, Harrison, Winstead, & Costanza, 1989), specifically, describing that the touch interactions between people of the opposite gender are perceived as more pleasant, and less invasive, than between people of the same sex (other gender differences are described in chapter 1.4.4). However, Haans and colleagues (2007) did not find a significant support for the abovementioned gender effects in mediated situations in their study. Since the current study is designed to provide richer interaction in using IVET than in the study by Haans and colleagues (2007), and there is minimal additional research in mediated situations that would provide more information for mediated environment, our hypothesis is predominantly built on numerous finding in non- mediated situations, to which we compare our results to imply similarities of mediated and non-mediated touch interactions. In particular, we state the following hypothesis:

H1: People perceive mediated social touch from an opposite-sex person as more pleasant than from a same-sex person. This effect is larger for males than for females.

With regard to the second research question, we build our expectations on body accessibility studies and research on perception of touch in non-mediated situations (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, Nguyen, 1983; Jourard, 1966; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975; Hutchinson, & Davidson, 1991). In line with the previous research we expect the touch applied on the public body locations (e.g. the arm) to be less invasive and rated as more pleasant than touch applied to the private body locations (e.g. the stomach). For the best illustration of such effect in our study, we have selected three body locations with minimal between subject differences in reactions to touch and maximal within subject differences at the same time (based on comparison of numerous studies of body accessibility, e.g. Jourard, 1966; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975; Hutchinson, Davidson, 1991). In other words, touch applied to the wrist and upper arm is expected to be most pleasant for most people, and touch applied on the stomach

18 area is expected to be least pleasant for most people; these expectations are based on findings in the literature mentioned above. Therefore, we state the second hypothesis as follows:

H2: People react more positively to a mediated social touch on more public body locations (e.g. the arm) than on more private body locations (e.g. the stomach).

In our study, for the sake of answering both research questions, we use self-reported measures of affective responses to the touch, and also measuring the skin conductance responses, as an objective measure of the response to the mediated social touch.

19 3 Methodology 3.1 Experimental design Participants interacted with a computer-generated agent of the same sex or opposite sex in a virtual environment. The agent was presented as human-controlled avatar (controlled in real time by a real, remote human – the story presented to the participant is described in detail in section 3.5); to avoid ambiguity in terms agent and avatar (for the difference, see chapter 1.6), we entitle the virtual character an avatar in the further text. The avatar interacted with each participant in six turns, performing a greeting gesture in each. Greeting gestures contained also a touch applied to one of three body locations in every second turn (touch was represented by vibrotactile actuators placed in a vest that were participants wearing); the other turns did not contain touch.

The present experiment included a 2 (participant sex) by 2 (avatar sex) by 4 (type of touch: upper arm, wrist, stomach, and no touch) mixed experimental design with both self-reported pleasantness of the interaction, and electrodermal activity (i.e. skin conductance responses; SCRs) as the dependent variables. Participant sex and avatar sex were used as between- subject conditions and type of touch as within-subject conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to either a male or a female avatar, so that half of the participants engaged in a same sex, and a half in an opposite sex interaction. Each participant engaged in six interactions with the avatar, three involving no touch, and three involving a touch to the left wrist, left upper arm, and stomach. The order of the six interactions was counterbalanced across participants (see Appendix).

The participants were asked to evaluate the greeting after each interaction. After all six interactions they were asked to answer post-test questionnaire containing questions measuring possibly moderating factors and demographic questions (such as sexual orientation, perceived attractiveness of the avatar, attitudes towards touch, and other discussed later in section 3.4).

3.2 Participants A total of 98 people participated in the current study. The mean age was 24.3 years (SD = 4.04; range 19 to 50 years); 51 were male. Participants were primarily students, recruited through multiple sources (JF Schouten participant database of Eindhoven University of Technology, International Students Network Eindhoven - mailing list, Facebook, word-of- mouth, and inviting leaflets spread over the campus of the university) in Eindhoven, in The Netherlands. Students of the Human-Technology Interaction master’s program at the Eindhoven University of Technology were excluded, because they were expected to have profound knowledge of IVET and especially the VirTU/e laboratory, where the experiment was conducted. Considering their relationship status, participants reported that they were single in 43 cases (43.9%), having a partner in 46 cases (46.9%), and married in 9 cases (9.2%). All participants reported their sexual interest in persons of the opposite sex. The instructions and questions in the experiment were given in English. Participants stated that English is not their first language in 93 cases (94.9%); however, all participants were fluent in English and no communication problem occurred during any experiment sessions. Fifty- two participants (53.1%) stated that they feel mostly connected to the western or central European culture, 27 people (27.5%) to Asian culture, 8 (8.2%) stated their connection to the culture of eastern Europe, 5 (5.1%) stated Latin America, 3 people (3.1%) filled in Middle Eastern culture, 1 person (1%) North African culture, and 2 (2%) described themselves as 20 multicultural people. The experiment lasted about 45 minutes and participants received €7.50 as a compensation for their participation.

3.3 Materials and Setting 3.3.1 Immersive virtual environment The experiment was modelled in the IVE, for its advantages in socio-psychological research, as we discussed earlier. The VirTU/e lab at the Eindhoven University of Technology was used. In particular, participants used NVIS nVisor SX111 high-resolution head-mounted display (Figure 5) with InterSense InertiaCube 2+ motion tracker. The video signal was processed via NVIS Advanced Video Control Unit for nVisor SX111. The scenes in the VE were modelled using WorldViz Vizard Virtual Reality Toolkit v 4.0. The participant was sitting on a bar chair throughout the Figure 5 – NVIS nVisor SX111 head- whole experimental session, so that his head was at a mounted display (photo: NVIS similar height as head of a standing avatar. product catalogue)

Avatars used in the experiment were built-in male and female life-sized human avatars available in the standard installation, rendered in the ‘medium’ quality (Figure 6), which provided sufficient realistic quality of the rendered image. Avatars were blinking with their eyes in a similar frequency and manner like a real human, and were keeping the eye contact with the participant throughout the whole experiment. Maintaining a realistic gaze of an avatar seems to be an important contributor to establishing the social presence of an agent in the IVE (Bailenson, Blascovich, Beall, & Loomis, 2001). They were standing in a relaxed position in the time between interactions – shifting weight between their right and left leg every now and then; this relaxed standing was animated using built-in ‘idle’ animation from Vizard animation library. When avatar was walking, built-in Vizard ‘walk’ animation was used. Hand gestures (greetings and touching the participant) were modelled in Vizard as a custom animation, by animating bones of the avatar’s skeleton.

Figure 6 – Male and female avatar used in the experiment (screenshot from WorldViz Vizard 4.0)

21 To avoid differences in seen distance of the avatar, that could have been caused by different position of sitting, or leaning participant forwards or backwards on a chair, we fixed the position (but not orientation) of the participant’s head in the IVE. It means that the screen projected in the head-mounted display was rendered accordingly to the direction of the sight (i.e. it reflected the rotation of the head in all directions), but it was fixed at the given position (i.e. it did not reflect the shift of the head forwards, backwards and on left or right side). This guaranteed that all participants saw the avatar in the identical distance, regardless their own position on the chair. Since the participants did not move from the chair during the experiment, the fixing of participant’s position in the VE was not noticeable for them, as pilot test showed.

3.3.2 Vibrotactile vest The touch in the experiment was simulated through a neoprene vest and two neoprene arm bands, which were equipped with vibrating pads. The vest and arm bands were adjustable to accommodate different body sizes, and allowed the placement of vibrating pads on the inner side using Velcro stripes. These vibrating pads consisted of multiple layers of neoprene attached together with four vibrating motors of type KE8-944 inside (see Figure 7 and Figure 8). These vibrating motors are similar to those in mobile phones. The vibrating motors were in a shape of a flat cylinder, 10 mm in diameter, and 3 mm in height, operating at 3 V DC, 70 mA (for more details and technical specifications, see Appendix). The vibrating motors were placed in a row, with a gap of 1.7 mm between each two motors. The pads were attached in the vest and arm bands were using Velcro stripes. The size of each vibrating pad was 13×5.5 cm.

22 Figure 7 – Schema of vibrating pad with its layers of neoprene and placing of the vibrating motors (dimensions in millimetres). The bottom layer (closest to the participant’s skin) in dimensions of 130×55 mm is made of a soft neoprene. The second layer, in the dimension of 130×35 mm is made of harder neoprene foam, serving for distribution of vibration over a larger area. Vibrating motors are glued on this layer, and covered with another layer of soft neoprene with a Velcro stripe attached from the other side (in a dimension of 130×25 mm). This Velcro stripe was used for attachment of the pad on a certain location inside the vest or arm band. Motors were powered and activated through the digital outputs of an Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller board, which was connected to a computer via USB, and controlled directly from the Vizard program (i.e. the program used to render the VE). The Arduino was programmed to actuate the four vibrating motors in a sequence of overlapping impulses. Each motor vibrated for 250-450 ms with gradient tendency (i.e. the first motor vibrated for 250 ms, and the last one vibrated for 450 ms), overlapping 150-200 ms with the vibration of the previous and next motor. This pattern was found as the smoothest and most realistic in a pre- experiment test; it is intended to resemble a gradually slowing stroke. Considering the fact that the sequence of vibrations on a row of four motors passes from the first motor to the last motor (i.e. distance of 9.1 cm) in 850 ms, we can state that the average velocity of the simulated stroke is around 9.5 cm per second. This is within a range of preferred velocity 1- 10 cm/s of social touch, which is the velocity that people have rated as most pleasant and most affective (Morrison, Björmsdotter, & Olausson, 2011; Morrison, Löken, & Olausson, 2010).

Figure 8 – Placement of four vibrating motors inside the pad (on the left) and the complete pad with motors covered with layers of neoprene (on the right). 23 The actuation of the vibrating pads was synchronized with the visual input in the VE, i.e. the vibration was actuated at a certain body location at the moment when avatar‘s hand was about to reach participant’s body. The complete setup of all devices that participants were wearing is depicted on Figure 9.

3.4 Measurements Affective response as dependent variable in the experiment was measured immediately after each interaction with a set of four self-reporting questions. Moreover, electrodermal activity (as a physiological measurement of affective response) was measured during the whole experiment session. Possible moderating factors were controlled: perceived sense of physical space in the VE (using the first factor of the ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory questionnaire developed by Lessiter, Freeman, Keogh, & Davidoff, 2001), perceived anthropomorphism (using modified anthropomorphism scale adapted from Godspeed I. Questionnaire developed by Bartneck, Croft, & Kulic, 2008), appearance of an avatar (attractiveness, perceived masculinity and Figure 9 – Participant sitting on a bar chair, femininity), and participant’s attitude towards with all the devices attached: the head- mounted display, the vest and arm bands touch (measured with Touch Avoidance Measure equipped with the vibrating pads (on the developed by Andersen & Leibowitz, 1978), upper arm, wrist and stomach), and the Mobi participant’s sexual orientation, age, and sensors attached on the right hand. relationship state.

3.4.1 Affective response measures During the experiment session, a within-test questionnaire was shown in the VE. This questionnaire contained four questions of self-reported measures of affection and four bogus questions. The questions used for measuring the affection were: “How pleasant, or unpleasant, did you feel to be greeted in this manner?”, “How comfortable, or uncomfortable, were you with being greeted in this manner?”, “How bothered, or not bothered, were you with being greeted in this manner?”, and “How overwhelmed, or calm, did you feel when being greeted in this manner?”. A five-point Likert scale format of responses was used, offering answers, e.g. “Very unrealistic”, “Unrealistic”, “Neutral”, “Realistic”, “Very realistic” (with the adjective corresponding to the question). The variable affection used in the analysis was calculated as a mean of the participant’s responses to the four questions (α = 0.72).

3.4.2 Physiological measures Electrodermal activity was measured during the whole virtual session using the Mobi device (type Mobi6-2b2as from producer TMS International). During the experiment, at the beginning of each turn of interaction, the experimenter inserted a marker into a dataset.

24 Therefore, we could select a timeframe in the length of eight seconds from the moment of actuation of vibrating motors, and identify skin conductance responses to the interaction of an avatar within this timeframe. We calculated size of the change in skin conductance (in µS) as the difference between the maximum (peak) value in this 8-second timeframe, and the minimum that preceded this maximum (see Figure 10). This response was then used as a variable arousal in further analyses. Values were recorded with a frequency of 512Hz. We applied the low-pass filter with the cut-off frequency at 1 Hz on the recorded data, to cut out unwanted noise that was not considered as a proper skin conductance response (SCR).

Since the participant was exposed to six interactions in a row, we needed to make sure that their SCRs are not reflecting responses to the previous interactions, but only the last one. For this purpose, the experimenter was monitoring the EDA of the participant constantly during the experiment, and always waited for a moment when the skin conductance level has returned to normal values after the peak of the previous SCR, and is not Figure 10 – Typical skin conductance response within the eight- changing rapidly. After that, second timeframe after the stimulus. The red cross indicates the the experimenter started the maximum, and the green circle indicates the minimum. The value next turn of interaction. This of the arousal was calculated as the difference between the break usually took about one to minimum and the maximum. (Y-axis showing skin conductance in three minutes. mS).

3.4.3 Post-test questionnaire Post-test questionnaire contained mostly questions measuring possible moderating factors and demographic questions. In particular, demographic and personal questions were asking participant’s age, gender, sexual orientation, culture, relationship state, and experience with using IVE.

Appearance of an avatar (attractiveness, perceived masculinity and femininity) was measured on a five-point Likert scale offering answers, e.g. “Very unattractive”, “Unattractive”, “Neutral”, Attractive”, and “Very attractive” (with the adjective corresponding to the question). For the further analysis, we transformed highly negatively correlated (r = -0.74, p < 0.01) variables femininity and masculinity into a one-dimensional bipolar scale perceived gender where negative part of the axis represents masculinity, and positive part of the axis represents femininity.

Perceived sense of physical space in the VE was measured using the first factor of the ITC- Sense of Presence Inventory questionnaire developed by Lessiter, Freeman, Keogh, & Davidoff (2001). This factor contained questions: “I had a sense of being in the scenes displayed”, “I felt I was visiting the places in the displayed environment”, “I felt that the characters and/or objects were able to touch me”. Five-point Likert scale response format was used, with the items ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. The average

25 response to these three questions was used in the analyses; the internal consistency was α = 0.68.

Ecological validity was measured using the third factor of the ITC-SOPI questionnaire developed by Lessiter and colleagues (2001). These three questions were: “The content seemed believable to me”, “The displayed environment seemed natural”, and “I had a strong sense that the characters and objects were solid”, using the same five-point response format as in previous set of questions, i.e. answers ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. For the analysis, the participant’s average response to these three questions was calculated, with the internal consistency α = 0.66.

Perceived anthropomorphism was measured by five questions adapted from Godspeed I. Questionnaire developed by Bartneck, Croft, & Kulic (2008). Questions like “How machinelike, or humanlike, did you feel the avatar was?” were asked, offering the response format of five-point Likert scale with options, e.g. “Very machinelike”, “Machinelike”, “Neutral”, “Humanlike”, “Very humanlike”. We calculated participant’s average response to these five questions in the analysis, with internal consistency α = 0.75.

Participant’s attitudes towards touch were measured by 18 questions of Touch Avoidance Measure questionnaire developed by Andersen & Leibowitz (1978). This questionnaire contained ten questions measuring the same-sex touch avoidance (labelled as TAM1), and eight questions measuring the opposite-sex touch avoidance (labelled as TAM2). TAM1 questions contain items like “I like to touch friends that are the same sex as I am”, and TAM2 contains questions like “I like it when members of the opposite sex touch me”. Answer format is five-point Likert scale with options “Strongly Agree”, “Agree”, “Undecided”, “Disagree”, and “Strongly disagree” for both TAM1 and TAM2. Two variables were calculated for the analyses – participant’s average response to TAM1 questions, with the internal consistency α = 0.83, and the participant’s average response to TAM2 questions, with the internal consistency α = 0.79.

3.5 Procedure Each participant was welcomed to the lab individually, and asked to read and sign a consent form describing the purpose of the experiment and possible risks of nausea or dizziness during the experimental session, due to wearing the head-mounted display. The consent form explicitly stated that the participant was free to leave the experiment at any time and for any reason, without any adverse consequences. After that, the participant was to led believe that the purpose of the experiment was to compare various types of greeting in the VE, and they were going to evaluate a series of greetings performed by an avatar that is controlled by a human confederate in another lab in the neighbouring building. In other words, participants were explicitly and repeatedly informed that the avatar in the VE was a representation of a real human being located in another room.

After this introduction, the participant was seated on a bar chair in the middle of the room, and the experimenter fitted the vest with the vibrotactile actuators. Next, the experimenter installed the sensors of the Mobi device used for measuring the electrodermal activity. Finally, the head-mounted display was carefully mounted onto the participant’s head, making sure it fit comfortably. The room in the VE was modelled to look very similar to the real room in which the experiment took place (i.e. a standard lab space in dimensions of 6.2 × 6.9 × 2.9 meters, with blue carpet and several overhead lights, and without windows or

26 significant pieces of furniture. See, e.g. Figure 5.). The experimenter instructed participants that due to technical limitations, they could not speak directly to the confederate in the other room. Then the experimenter explained that he went to check whether the confederate in the other room was prepared, so that they could begin with the experiment.

After that, the experimenter showed seven football balls on the floor in the virtual room, and asked the participant to count them. This task helped the participant to accommodate in the VE, allowing them to try how it feels to look around in different directions in the VE, and also serving as a control that they can see correctly in the VE. After the participant’s answer to the counting task, a sample vibration stimulus was demonstrated on an upper arm, and participant was informed that this is a representation of touch in the VE. At this moment, everything was prepared and interaction with the avatar was started. The experimenter was constantly monitoring the output of the Mobi measuring the skin conductance responses during the whole experiment, so that the changes in the level of skin conductance could have been identified immediately.

At the start of the experiment, either a male or female avatar was standing in front of the participant at a distance of about 2.5 m in a relaxed, idle position (Figure 11). Next, the avatar told the participant “Hi, my name is Susan” in a female voice, or “Hi, my name is Steven” in a male voice, depending on the sex of the avatar. This introduction was used to support participant’s awareness of the gender of the avatar.

Figure 11 – Female and male avatar shown in their initial position. The room in the IVE is modelled to look very similarly to the real room in which the experiment takes place (VirTU/e Lab). After about a minute or two, the avatar started with the first of six interactions. For that purpose, the avatar approached the participant until they were within reaching distances (at about 65 cm measured from the back of participant’s head, see Figure 12). At that point the avatar performed the greeting gesture with the left hand (either wave, or raising a hand, or opening hand), and stretched the right hand towards the participant’s body. If it was a condition containing touch, vibration on a certain body location was activated synchronously with the approaching right hand of the avatar. After the interaction, the avatar walked to the initial position, and a within-test questionnaire with eight questions appeared on a side panel in the virtual room (Figure 13). The participant answered each question aloud, and these answers were recorded by the experimenter. After the last question was answered, the questionnaire disappeared. After a brief break (1-3 min), and when no rapid changes in SCR signal were observed by the experimenter, the next interaction was started. 27 Figure 12 – Avatar at the closest position. Avatar's Figure 13 – Within-test questionnaire as it was right arm is just touching participant's body. shown in the IVE.

After the final interaction, the head-mounted display, Mobi sensors and vest with vibrating pads were removed, and the participant was asked to complete a post-test questionnaire on a computer. After finishing the questionnaire, the participant was debriefed and paid for their participation. The debriefing included asking about believed purpose of the experiment (checking whether the presented story was believable), ensuring that the participant was not nauseated or disoriented from using the HMD (and providing the care if they were), explaining the true purpose of the experiment, explaining participant’s questions (if any), and thanking for participant’s help. The entire session took around 45 minutes.

28 4 Results First, we describe the tests of experimental manipulation and differences between conditions, to provide information about possible confounds. Then, we describe the test of the first hypothesis H1: People perceive mediated social touch from the opposite-sex person more pleasant than from a same-sex person. This effect is larger for males than for females. After that, we describe the test of the second hypothesis H2: People react more positively to a mediated social touch on more public body locations (e.g. the arm) than on more private body locations (e.g. the stomach). In both cases, we tested the effects of independent variables on both self-reported measure affection, and physiological measure arousal (measured as electrodermal activity response) as dependent variables. We used an alpha level of 0.05 for all statistical tests.

4.1 Manipulation checks and differences between conditions We tested whether there was a difference in perceived gender (masculinity or femininity) of the male and the female avatar, and whether this perceived gender was dependent on participant sex. For this purpose, we conducted a 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANOVA with perceived gender as a dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met. We found that the male avatar (M = 3.46, SD = 0.94), on average, was perceived as significantly less masculine than the female avatar 2 (M = 3.94, SD = 0.91) was perceived feminine, with F(1, 94) = 6.35, p = 0.01, ηp = 0.06. This difference was found to be independent of participant sex. We found neither a main 2 effect of participant sex, with F(1, 94) = 0.43, p = 0.51, ηp = 0.01, nor an avatar sex by 2 participant sex interaction, with F(1, 94) = 0.74, p = 0.39, ηp = 0.01).

Similarly, we tested whether there was a difference in perceived attractiveness of the male and the female avatar, and whether this attractiveness was dependent on participant sex. For this purpose, we conducted a 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANOVA with attractiveness as the dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met. We found that the male avatar (M = 2.52, SD = 0.95), on average, was perceived as significantly less attractive than the female avatar (M = 3.2, SD = 0.95), with F(1, 94) = 12.41, p < 2 0.01, ηp = 0.12. This difference was found to be independent of participant sex. We found neither a main effect of participant sex, 2 with F(1, 94) = 0.03, p = 0.87, ηp = 0.00, nor an avatar sex by participant sex interaction, with 2 F(1, 94) = 0.06, p = 0.80, ηp = 0.00).

Yet another possible confounding variable in the experiment can be participants’ attitudes towards touch. We tested whether there was a difference in avoidance towards same-sex touch (TAM1) and avoidance towards opposite- Figure 14 – TAM1 and TAM2 mean scores for male and sex touch (TAM2) between the female participants. 29 male and the female participants. For this purpose, we, at first, conducted a univariate ANOVA with participant sex (male, female) as a factor and TAM1 as the dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met. We found that the female participants (M = 3.51, SD = 0.57), on average, reported significantly higher same-sex touch 2 avoidance than male participants (M = 3.05, SD = 0.63), with F(1, 96) = 14.48, p < 0.01, ηp = 0.13. After that we conducted the same analysis, but with TAM2 as the dependent variable. In this case, assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were, again, met. We found that the female participants (M = 3.55, SD = 0.51), on average, reported significantly lower opposite-sex touch avoidance than male participants (M = 3.99, SD = 0.53), with F(1, 2 96) = 17.06, p < 0.01, ηp = 0.15. In other words, female participants reported similar sex- avoidance towards same sex and opposite sex, whereas male participants reported high difference between touch avoidance towards touch initiated by males, and touch initiated by females (see Figure 14).

4.2 Effects of gender composition To describe the gender effects on self-reported measures, we tested first whether there was a difference in affection (variable representing self-reported affective response) caused by touch from the male and the female avatar, and whether the affection was dependent on participant sex. For this purpose, we conducted a 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANOVA with affection as the dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met. We found neither a main effect of 2 participant sex, with F(1, 94) = 0.12, p = 0.73, ηp = 0.00, nor a main effect of avatar sex, 2 with F(1, 94) = 1.51, p = 0.22, ηp = 0.02. More importantly, we have not found an expected avatar sex by participant sex interaction effect – which was the test for the first hypothesis H1 2 – with F(1, 94) = 0.63, p = 0.43, ηp = 0.01 (see Figure 15).

Figure 15 – Mean affection for the male and female Figure 16 – Mean arousal (SCR measure) for the participants, interacting with the male and female male and female participants, interacting with the avatar male and female avatar Then we tested the gender effects on physiological measures. For this purpose we tested whether there was a difference in arousal (size of electrodermal activity response) caused by the male and the female avatar, and whether this arousal was dependent on participant sex. For this purpose, we conducted a 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANOVA with arousal as the dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and 30 homogeneity of variances were met. We found a marginally significant avatar sex by participant sex interaction effect, supporting our first hypothesis H1, with F(1, 82) = 3.14, p = 2 0.08, ηp = 0.04. The arousal was greater when (both male and female) participants interacted with the avatar of the same sex, than when they interacted with the avatar of the opposite sex (see Figure 16). We did not find either a main effect of participant sex, with F(1, 82) = 0.00, 2 2 p = 0.96, ηp = 0.00, nor a main effect of avatar sex, with F(1, 82) = 0.16, p = 0.69, ηp = 0.00).

Subsequently, beyond the interest of our research questions, we explored whether any possible dyad composition effect may be confounded by the confounding factors mentioned above. For this purpose, we conducted three 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANCOVAs with self-reported affection as the dependent variable. As a covariate we included attractiveness of an avatar, TAM1, or TAM2. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met in all cases. In the test with attractiveness as a covariate, we found the main effect of attractiveness to be significantly related with 2 affection, with F(1, 90) = 6.52, p = 0.01, ηp = 0.07. The more attractive the avatar was perceived, the higher the affection was. However, no other main effects or any first or second order interaction effects were found to be significant with F ≤ 0.61 and p ≥ 0.44. In the test with TAM1 as a covariate we found only the main effect of TAM1 to be significantly related 2 with affection, with F(1, 90) = 4.87, p = 0.03, ηp = 0.05. The higher TAM1 score participant reported, the higher the affection was. Again, no other main effects or any first and second order interaction effects were found to be significant with F ≤ 1.87 and p ≥ 0.18. Finally, we conducted the same test with TAM2 as a covariate, in which we found the main effect of 2 TAM2 to be significantly related with affection, F(1, 90) = 1.44, p = 0.02, ηp = 0.06. The higher TAM2 score participant reported, the higher the affection was. Again, no other main effects or any first and second order interaction effects were found to be significant with F ≤ 2.40 and p ≥ 0.13. Interestingly, avatar’s attractiveness, and participant’s same-sex (TAM1) and opposite-sex touch avoidance (TAM2) explained substantial part of variance in self- reported affection. However, the effect of dyad composition on perceived affection was not confounded by these variables, and so can be considered as stronger predictors of affection than the gender composition.

Then, we tested all three possible covariate – attractiveness, TAM1 and TAM2 in 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANCOVAs with physiological arousal as the dependent variable. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were met in all cases. In the test with attractiveness as a covariate, we found significant avatar sex by participant sex interaction effect, supporting our first hypothesis H1, with F(1, 78) = 2 3.98, p = 0.05, ηp = 0.05. No main effects or any other first and second order interaction effects were found to be significant with F ≤ 0.89 and p ≥ 0.45. In the test with TAM1 as a covariate, we found neither main effects nor first and second order interaction effects to be significant with F ≤ 1.63 and p ≥ 0.21. Similar result was shown in the test with TAM2 as a covariate, where we found neither main effects nor first and second order interaction effects to be significant with F ≤ 1.23 and p ≥ 0.27.

4.3 Effects of body location We calculated an aggregated affection score as the average response to the touch on three body locations (and no-touch interactions as a control condition), and used the output value as the dependent variable affection mean for testing the second hypotheses.

31 We performed two within-subjects ANOVA with body location as the factor (stomach, upper arm, wrist, no touch) and either affection or arousal as the dependent variable. Since Mauchly’s sphericity test indicated that the sphericity assumption had been violated for both self-reported affection (Χ2(2) = 21.65, p < 0.01) and physiological arousal (Χ2(2) = 20.73, p < 0.01), the degrees of freedom were adjusted using Huynh-Feldt corrections (ε = 0.88 for self- report measures, and ε = 0.92 for physiological measures).

Figure 17 – Mean affection for different types of Figure 18 – Mean arousal (SCR measure) for touch: no touch, wrist, upper arm, and stomach. different types of touch: no touch, wrist, upper arm, and stomach.

We found a significant effect of body location of affection with F(2.65, 257.05) = 20.85, p < 2 0.01, ηp = 0.18. As expected, pair-wise comparisons (LSD) indicated that affection was significantly lower for a touch to the stomach area than to all other body parts (p < 0.01), or when compared to the no-touch condition (p < 0.01; see Figure 17). Furthermore, affection was significantly lower for a touch on the upper arm area than in no-touch condition (p < 0.01). And, affection was found to be marginally significantly lower for a touch on the wrist than in no-touch condition (p = 0.10). No other significant differences were found between the body locations (p ≥ 0.11).

When we conducted the similar repeated-measures ANOVA on (physiological) arousal as a dependent variable, the test revealed the significant within-subject effect of body location 2 F(2.74, 233.26) = 10.34, p < 0.01, ηp = 0.11. The pair-wise comparisons (LSD) indicated that the arousal was significantly lower for no-touch condition than for any touch condition (p < 0.01; see Figure 18). Furthermore, arousal was found to be significantly higher for touch on wrist than on upper arm (p = 0.01). No other significant differences were found between the body locations (p ≥ 0.11).

Therefore, the second hypothesis was confirmed on self-reported measures of affection. Moreover, physiological measures of arousal supported the hypothesis revealing that the body location effect is statistically significant.

Finally, we tested the correlations of self-reported affection and physiological arousal in all four touch conditions (touch on three body locations and no-touch condition). In this test we did not find any significant correlation (r ≤ 0.11, p ≥ 0.32).

32 5 Discussion In the current study we investigated whether mediated touch can be considered as similar to non-mediated – real – touch. Based on the previous research in non-mediated situations, we selected two highly predictable effects of touch behaviour, and designed a study to test whether these effects would also occur in mediated situations, using an immersive virtual environment. Comparing the results of our study with the findings from the previous research allowed us to draw a conclusion about similarity of computer-mediated touch with non- mediated touch. In particular, we focused on the gender differences in affective responses to touch, and to responses to touch applied to different body locations. The results of this study suggest that the similarity of the mediated touch to the non-mediated touch is limited, but present; this statement is supported with self-reported measures and also physiological measures. In the next sections, we discuss the findings, draw a conclusion of the current research, point out the limitations, and suggest possible implication to further research in the field of haptic technologies.

5.1 Hypothesis testing We formulated two research questions to be answered in this study. The first research question asked: What are the differences in affective responses to same vs. opposite sex mediated social touch for males vs. females? We also formulated a hypothesis predicting the answer to this question, which was stated as follows: People perceive mediated social touch from the opposite-sex person more pleasant than from a same-sex person. This effect is larger for males than for females. This hypothesis was not supported with the results of self- reported measures of affection. We found the affective response to the avatar to be independent of the sex of the avatar, the sex of the participant, and also the sex composition of the avatar and the participant (i.e. whether participants interacted with the avatar of the same sex vs. opposite sex). This finding is similar to the finding of Haans and colleagues (2007), who speculated that lack of the expected gender effect in their study could have been caused by too small size of their sample. We have confirmed their findings in the results of our study, where a sample size was almost doubled in comparison to the sample size of Haans and colleagues (2007). However, we did find a marginally significant effect of gender composition on physiological arousal, measured with skin conductance responses. In line with our expectations, people’s skin conductance responses to a touch were different when the touch was initiated by an avatar of the same sex, than when the touch was initiated by the avatar of the opposite sex. However, we must emphasize that the skin conductance response alone does not indicate whether the arousal represents the negative arousal or positive arousal, therefore the physiological measures can only support interpretation of findings from self-reported measures; it cannot clearly state whether it supports our hypothesis or not, due to the lack of knowledge about character of arousal (negative or positive).

The second research question asked: What are the differences in affective responses to mediated social touch on different body locations? We hypothesized that: People react more positively to a mediated social touch on more public body locations (e.g. the arm) than on more private body locations (e.g. the stomach). This hypothesis was supported by the results based on the self-reported measure of affection, showing that touch applied to the most private area – stomach – was perceived as less pleasant than touches to other more public areas. All touch conditions were, however, less pleasant than a control no-touch condition. The physiological measures of skin conductance responses confirmed our expectation that the level of arousal is dependent on the body location. However, as we already noted in the discussion of previous research question, we cannot identify whether the arousal is positive or 33 negative, so that we cannot conclude which body location is preferred before others. We can only state that touch applied to the wrist caused the highest response in arousal, and the touch applied to the upper arm caused the lowest response. This might mean that wrist is considered as intimate area of the body, or is more sensitive to touch. The strong response on the wrist location could also be explained by the fact that participants were in the sitting position during the experiment, with the hands in their lap, therefore the vibrating actuator on the wrist was very close to the intimate areas of the body. Physiological measures, in this case, may be more sensitive to the stimuli applied near to the intimate areas, than self-reported questions.

5.2 Explanation of findings Our findings indicated that people respond to mediated social touch similarly in regard to the body location being touched. The touch on the stomach area was found to be least pleasant, which is similar finding like in study of Heslin and colleagues (1983), and is also in correspondence with the finding of Jourard (1966) who reported that the stomach is the least frequently used body part in an interpersonal physical contact. A similar finding was reported by Haans and colleagues (2007) with respect to mediated social touch by means of vibrating motors. In sum, our findings in effects of touch on different body locations correspond with previous research in non-mediated (e.g. Jourard, 1966; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975; Hutchinson, & Davidson, 1991) and mediated (Haans, de Nood, & IJsselsteijn, 2007) situations. Regarding the affective effects of being touched on different body locations, mediated social touch is similar to non-mediated touch.

Since the results of our study, as well as the results of Haans and colleagues (2007) indicated that the gender effect in people’s responses to mediated social touch was not similar to responses to non-mediated social touch, we must disclose the reason for this difference. One explanation might be in the methodological differences of recent studies and the previous studies (e.g. Heslin, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 1983; Derlega, Lewis, Harrison, Winstead, & Costanza, 1989; Major & Heslin, 1982). In the recent studies (i.e. the current study and Haans, de Nood, & IJsselsteijn, 2007), participants were asked about their feeling after each touch interaction; therefore, the dependent variable was based on self-reported measures (and the current study moreover used physiological SCR measures). In previous studies on non- mediated touch, results are usually based on observations or experiments where participants evaluated recordings of touch interactions, which do not necessarily have to correspond to their actual affective response to the touch stimuli. Conducting a new study measuring the affective responses to touch in non-mediated situation, and then replicating the scenario and methods of measurements as realistically as possible in the IVET would help to overcome possible methodological differences. Alternatively, we can simply accept that the same- opposite sex difference is missing in mediated situation even in an IVET with realistic avatars. More research then is needed to explore why this is the case. Perhaps there are other non-verbal cues that cause the gender differences in non-mediated situations but that are not simulated properly in recent studies of mediated touch.

Another explanation may be that there are numerous other nonverbal cues that are accompanied with touch (Knapp & Hall, 2010), and these cues are difficult to separate from others. Such separation would allow us to investigate effect of each cue independently on the others. IVET, in principle may be the ultimate tool for such separation, for its ability to standardize and fully control the settings of the experiment, and manipulate only selected ones. However, these cues are still present in the experiment, even if the experiment is 34 conducted in IVE, and we must identify and explore these cues and their effects to be able to adjust them or predict their effects. In other words, the avatars in our experiment did perform several movements, were standing in particular positions, their face demonstrated some facial expression, their pupils had certain dilation, and myriad of other cues were present; even if these low-level nonverbal cues were totally identical for all participants (which would not be possible if the experiment was done with real human confederate, i.e. not in the IVE), we are not able to describe the effects of all these cues in detail, and say with certainty how they might have affected the responses to our stimuli (i.e. the touch applied to different body locations, and by person of a certain gender).

Another explanation of our result may be in the measurements that we used. We selected to use both self-reported measures, as well as physiological measures to be able to compare their outcomes. As our results revealed, the differences in the results of these two ways of measuring affective responses were remarkable, and we did not find any correlation between self-reported responses and physiological responses. This brings the question whether self- reported and physiological measures can be actually used for measurement of affective responses, and which of these two is better for this purpose. Bailenson and colleagues (2004b) argue, based on their previous work, that subjective self-reported questionnaires may be ineffective for measuring affective responses, because these questionnaires are not sensitive enough to measure affective responses towards agents in IVE. Instead, they suggest behavioural measures such as nonverbal gestures, eye-gaze and task performance as the most appropriate way of measuring affective responses (Bailenson, et al., 2004a). Moreover, their finding is based on research conducted in IVE, using similar technology as what we used, which makes it even more relevant as a possible explanation of our results. We suggest that future research could replicate our study using behavioural measures, which may be more effective way of measuring affective responses in IVE, than self report. Combining these behavioural measures with physiological measures might provide us with better measuring tool for comparing effects of touch mediated and non mediated situations.

Concluding our results, we may state that although people’s self-reported affective responses to same-sex mediated social touch do not differ from for opposite-sex mediated social touch, we found some evidence that the body may react differently to same and opposite sex mediated touch. The physiological measures of EDA revealed that their arousal raised more when they interacted with the other of the opposite sex; although this difference was only marginally significant. This finding can be also interpreted as the demonstration of how people’s verbal responses might rely on norms, instead of factual feelings, which in consequence distorts their self-reported answers. In contrast, physiological measures reflect factual responses of people’s body and do not reflect people’s attitudes or compliance to social norms. In this interpretation, physiological measures are considered to be more reliable for measuring affective responses than self-reports.

The effect of social touch, and whether touch induces positive or negative reactions, can depend on numerous factors. Some of them have been identified as predictors of affection in analysis of our data – namely participants’ attitudes towards touch, and avatar’s attractiveness. We used touch avoidance scales TAM1 (describing same-sex touch avoidance), and TAM2 (describing opposite-sex touch avoidance) for controlling for differences in participants’ touch attitudes. As expected, participants’ scores on these two scales were found to be dependent on gender. However against expectations, women were found less touch avoidant towards opposite-sex touch than men, and men were found less

35 touch avoidant towards same-sex touch than women. This result is in the opposite direction as the results in previous studies (e.g. Andersen & Leibowitz, 1978; Larsen & LeRoux, 1984; Haans, de Nood, & IJsselsteijn, 2007), which was probably an unexpected specificity of our sample. Moreover, we found TAM1 and TAM2 scores to be significant predictors of our dependent variable affection. The unexpected and substantial difference in attitudes towards touch could have affected the expected effect in our study, especially in regard to the first research question (i.e. gender differences). We must also note that the used scale does not consider body location being touched, context of the situation, nor relationship to the touching person (i.e. whether it is a stranger, family member, or acquaintance), and some participants found it difficult to answer the general questions, as we deduced from verbal comments and questions asked during the completion the questionnaire. Many people commented that their answer really depended on the other person – whether it was a friend or a stranger. For these reasons, we may conclude that the relevance of these scales for prediction of specific touch outcomes may be speculative.

5.3 Limitations There were several limitations to the present experiment. First the avatars used in the experiment were not equally attractive to the participants. The female avatar was significantly more attractive than the male avatar. Moreover, the effect of perceived attractiveness was found as a significant predictor of affection. Although, our analysis suggests that the avatar’s attractiveness was not moderating the effects of gender composition, avatar’s attractiveness was found related to affection. Therefore we suggest selecting avatars of a similar attractiveness for the further experiments.

A second limitation may be the absence of voice in the interaction. Several participants stated that the interaction with the avatar was awkward because the avatar approached them and greeted them with gesture and touch without saying any word. That might have decreased the feeling of realness of the situation, so that people might have responded differently than how they would respond in a real interpersonal interaction. Future research should consider incorporating also verbal expressions into similar situations.

Third, when approaching the participants the avatar may have approached the participant too closely. Multiple participants reported that they perceived strongly the invasion of personal space, and some of them even reported that they felt anxious because the avatar was too close to them. This can be illustrated by following citations: “I found it unpleasant that the avatar came very close to me. I don’t care if my friend comes this close, but I didn’t think this avatar should be in my personal space”, or “I felt a bit uncomfortable during greetings, when the avatar was too close to me”. See how people saw the avatar in the closest position on Figure 12. We suggest controlling for the perceived invasion of the personal space in further studies. The perceived invasion of privacy and violation of a personal space might affect, or even override the reaction to the touch, as noted by Gallace & Spence (2010).

Fourth, any possible effects of the interaction with the avatar may have reduced over time, as numerous participants reported that they got accommodated to the interactions (regardless whether they included the touch or not) after the first and even more after the later turns. This is illustrated by the following citations: “At first, I was astonished, then it started to become normal, and later it turned to annoying”, or “In the beginning I felt uncomfortable as it was a new experience to me. After that I was feeling more relaxed”. However, we anticipated this

36 adaptation effect, and therefore we counterbalanced conditions, and controlled for the order effect of the interaction

Possible improvement of the experiment could be achieved by strengthening the scenario, so that people perceived the situation as more social. The current setting included one-way interaction, when participants could not respond to the avatar by a returned touch, nor verbally. We suggest, for the future research, including a clear communication goal into the situation, so that people feel involved in the reciprocal communication task, such as a dialogue. Possible weakly social situation might have weakened the gender effects; improving the situation to be perceived as more social is expected to strengthen the gender differences in interpersonal interactions (Fischer, Rytting, & Heslin, 1976).

The last remark to our experiment is that the experimenter – 26 years old male person – always touched each participant in the beginning of the experiment as he had to install the head-mounted display and the vibrating bands. Therefore, we can suspect that the experiment was conducted in the situation where Midas touch (Crusco & Wetzel, 1984) is present, which might have made participants to be more compliant with providing an answer that they thought experimenters wanted to hear, or simply more favourable evaluation (in line with findings of Fischer, et al., 1976). However, this would affect only self-reported measures and not physiological responses, and we can only speculate about the strength of such effect.

5.4 Conclusion Despite these limitations we have learnt from our study that people react to the touch applied to different body location differently, in such a way that is similar to how they react in non- mediated situations. Furthermore, we found out that according to people’s self-reports, the touch initiated from the person of the same and opposite sex is perceived similarly (which is in contrast to people’s behaviour in non-mediated situations), however physiological measures of SCR indicate, that their body may become more aroused when the touch comes from the person of the opposite sex. We have also found remarkable differences in self- reported measures and physiological measures, suggesting that these two ways of measuring the affective responses are not equally effective, or not actually measuring the same phenomenon.

How can we further apply these findings? For a purpose of further research of mediated social touch we suggest to employ behavioural measures, which may be more appropriate way of measuring affective responses than self-reports. Considering the improving rich multisensory communication technologies, we argue that touch may still be a promising additional modality that has the power to shift the remote social interaction even closer to face-to-face social interaction. However, finding the effective way of using touch for transferring its social effects over a distance still needs more research, especially considering other nonverbal communication cues that are accompanied with touch, such as perception of personal space, body gestures, facial expressions, and other subtle aspects of interpersonal interaction that may cause large effects in perception of the social situation. IVET seems to be effective tool for such research, and including touch as additional modality in IVE (extending the realistic vision and hearing that IVE already utilize) opens new possibilities, e.g. for further research of haptic interactions and social effects of touch. The outcomes of the current study can be used for the further development of rich communication devices, possibly using IVE as a communication medium.

37 Based on our results we can conclude that the interpersonal touch simulated by vibrotactile actuators may be effective way of representing feeling of a human touch on a distance. Therefore, such technology can be used for transferring certain effects of touch over a distance, and allow people to use haptic interpersonal interaction remotely. With the technology used in the current study (i.e. IVET in combination with vibrotactile actuators) we have proved that people respond to the touch on the different body locations similarly in the mediated situations, like in the non-mediated situations. This is very well corresponding with the previous findings of Haans and colleagues (2007) and we suggest that future research should focus on finding the reason for lack of gender effects of touch in mediated situations. As soon as we identify the nature of such effect in touch, and will be able to reproduce these effects in mediated situations (e.g. in IVE), we could use such technology for research in the field of body accessibility. Then we would be able to develop a suit with multiple vibrating actuators over the whole body, which would allow us to compile detailed body maps of body accessibility. These maps would be similar to those coming out from research in non- mediated environment (e.g. Jourard, 1966; Nguyen, Heslin, Nguyen, 1975; Hutchinson, & Davidson, 1991), but with much higher precision, differentiating smaller body locations in bigger detail. Moreover, it would be possible to easily and relatively cheaply replicate the study identically in different countries, cultures and with any specific population sample, which would bring a lot of valuable information about body accessibility for specific populations. Utilizing of such detailed knowledge of effects of mediated social touch in development of rich multisensory communication technologies suggest itself.

Future research, especially with methods involving objective physiological measures would reveal the secrets of mediated social touch, that still remain to be uncovered.

38 Acknowledgments I would like to thank to Antal Haans and Wijnand IJsselsteijn for their priceless support, inspiration and encouragement in this project. I enjoyed every meeting that we had, and all the inspiring discussions about (not only) this project. These experiences strengthen even more my (already high) interest in research, and motivated me to strive for a scientific career. I also thank to Aart Spank and Martin Boschman for their assistance in the VirTU/e laboratory, to Doménique van Gennip for his help with preparing the software for the experiment, to Wouter Hoogen for his help with analysing the GSR data, and Ryan Kapsar for his comments on this report. Last but not least, I would like to thank to my girlfriend Dominika for her support and patience during my work on this graduation project, and I also thank to my family for their belief in me. Once I become famous, I will be proudly mentioning you all as my sources of support and inspiration.

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45 Summary A substantial portion of human communication is nonverbal. People use many nonverbal cues during face-to-face communication, such as facial expression, voice intonation, posture and body language, gestures, eye contact, proxemics (the use of physical space; i.e. personal space regulation), and touch. The current communication devices allow us to employ only limited number of communication cues without substantial technological limitations. These cues are based mostly on vision and hearing. Previous research indicated that the richness of current communication devices can be improved by including the transfer of touch to the interaction. However, considering current remote communication technologies, transferring a perception of personal space and touch over a distance is neither common, nor thoroughly explored. In the current study, we focus on touch in mediated (remote) social interaction.

Many authors concur, describing touch as an important part of social interaction. Physical interpersonal interaction is described as social touch, and refers to the situations when people touch each other. Mediated social touch is defined as “the ability of one actor to touch another actor over a distance by means of tactile or kinaesthetic feedback technology” (Haans & IJsselsteijn, 2006).

Very little research has been done in comparison of mediated and non-mediated touch interactions and psychological effects of remote haptic communication. Considering research on mediated social touch, the first study (Haans, de Nood, & IJsselsteijn, 2007) provided preliminary evidence that the gender differences in same and opposite sex touch that are present in unmediated situations, may also be present in mediated situations. However, the results of this earlier work were not conclusive.

The goal of this study is to describe social interactions in the virtual environments, and find out whether affective responses to touch in mediated situations are similar to those in non- mediated situations. To illustrate the similarities of mediated social touch and non-mediated social touch, we need a variable with highly predictable effects in unmediated situations. Gender differences in affective responses to touch, and differences in affective responses to touch applied to different body location serve well for this purpose, as the effects of these two aspects are well described in numerous studies in non-mediated situations.

Since we focus on mediated communication (i.e. remote social interaction), we needed to choose an appropriate tool for studying social interactions involving touch, and other communication channels such as hearing and vision, from several technologies. We have chosen the immersive virtual environment technologies (IVETs) as such a tool. IVET provide us with the possibility of conducting an experiment simulating the social interactions with the full experimental control, in fully standardized scenario.

We formulated two research questions to be answered in this study. The first research question asked: What are the differences in affective responses to same vs. opposite sex mediated social touch for males vs. females? We also formulated a hypothesis predicting the answer to this question, which was stated as follows: People perceive mediated social touch from the opposite-sex person more pleasant than from a same-sex person. This effect is larger for males than for females. The second research question asked: What are the differences in affective responses to mediated social touch on different body locations? We hypothesized that: People react more positively to a mediated social touch on more public body locations (e.g. the arm) than on more private body locations (e.g. the stomach).

46 A total of 98 people participated in the current study. Participants interacted with a computer- generated agent of the same sex or opposite sex in a virtual environment. The touch in the experiment was simulated through a neoprene vest and two neoprene arm bands, which were equipped with vibrating pads. The present experiment included a 2 (participant sex) by 2 (avatar sex) by 4 (type of touch: upper arm, wrist, stomach, and no touch) mixed experimental design with both self-reported pleasantness of the interaction, and electrodermal activity (i.e. skin conductance responses; SCRs) as the dependent variables. Participant sex and avatar sex were used as between-subject conditions and type of touch as within-subject conditions. Each participant engaged in six interactions with the avatar, three involving no touch, and three involving a touch to the left wrist, left upper arm, or stomach. Affective response as dependent variable in the experiment was measured immediately after each interaction with a set of four self-reporting questions. Moreover, electrodermal activity (as a physiological measurement of affective response) was measured during the whole experiment session. Possible moderating factors were controlled: perceived sense of physical space in the VE, perceived anthropomorphism, appearance of an avatar (attractiveness, perceived masculinity and femininity), and participant’s attitude towards touch, participant’s sexual orientation, age, and relationship state.

To describe the gender effects, we tested first whether there was a difference in affection (variable representing self-reported affective response) caused by touch from the male and the female avatar, and whether the affection was dependent on participant sex. For this purpose, we conducted a 2 (participant sex: male, female) × 2 (avatar sex: male, female) ANOVA with affection as the dependent variable. We found neither a main effect of participant sex, nor a main effect of avatar sex. More importantly, we have not found an expected avatar sex by participant sex interaction effect – which was the test for the first 2 hypothesis H1 – with 0.63, p = 0.43, ηp = 0.01. Then we tested the gender effects on physiological measures. We found a marginally significant avatar sex by participant sex 2 interaction effect, supporting our first hypothesis H1, with F(1, 82) = 3.14, p = 0.08, ηp = 0.04. The arousal (size of electrodermal activity response) was greater when (both male and female) participants interacted with the avatar of the same sex, than when they interacted with the avatar of the opposite sex.

We performed two within-subjects ANOVA with body location as the factor (stomach, upper arm, wrist, no touch) and either affection or arousal as the dependent variable. We found a 2 significant effect of body location of affection with F(2.65, 257.05) = 20.85, p < 0.01, ηp = 0.18. On (physiological) arousal as a dependent variable, the test revealed the significant 2 within-subject effect of body location F(2.74, 233.26) = 10.34, p < 0.01, ηp = 0.11. Therefore, the second hypothesis was confirmed on self-reported measures of affection. Moreover, physiological measures of arousal supported the hypothesis revealing that the body location effect is statistically significant.

The first hypothesis was not supported with the results of self-reported measures of affection. However, we did find a marginally significant effect of gender composition on physiological arousal, measured with skin conductance responses. In line with our expectations, people’s skin conductance responses to a touch were different when the touch was initiated by an avatar of the same sex, than when the touch was initiated by the avatar of the opposite sex.

The second hypothesis was supported by the results based on the self-reported measure of affection, showing that touch applied to the most private area – stomach – was perceived as less pleasant than touches to other more public areas. The physiological measures of skin 47 conductance responses confirmed our expectation that the level of arousal is dependent on the body location.

We selected to use both self-reported measures, as well as physiological measures to be able to compare their outcomes. As our results revealed, the differences in the results of these two ways of measuring affective responses were remarkable, and we did not find any correlation between self-reported responses and physiological responses. Bailenson and colleagues (2004b) argue, based on their previous work, that subjective self-reported questionnaires may be ineffective for measuring affective responses. Instead, they suggest behavioural measures such as nonverbal gestures, eye-gaze and task performance as the most appropriate way of measuring affective responses. We suggest that future research could replicate our study using behavioural measures, which may be more effective way of measuring affective responses in IVE, than self report.

Concluding our results, we may state that although people’s self-reported affective responses to same-sex mediated social touch do not differ from for opposite-sex mediated social touch, we found some evidence that the body may react differently to same and opposite sex mediated touch. The physiological measures of EDA revealed that their arousal raised more when they interacted with the other of the opposite sex; although this difference was only marginally significant. This finding can be also interpreted as the demonstration of how people’s verbal responses might rely on norms, instead of factual feelings, which in consequence distorts their self-reported answers. In contrast, physiological measures reflect factual responses of people’s body and do not reflect people’s attitudes or compliance to social norms. In this interpretation, physiological measures are considered to be more reliable for measuring affective responses than self-reports.

There were several limitations to the present experiment. First the avatars used in the experiment were not equally attractive to the participants. A second limitation may be the absence of voice in the interaction. Several participants stated that the interaction with the avatar was awkward because the avatar approached them and greeted touched them without saying any word. Third, the perceived invasion of privacy and violation of a personal space might affect, or even override the reaction to the touch, as noted by Gallace & Spence (2010).

The outcomes of the current study can be used for the further development of rich communication devices, possibly using IVE as a communication medium. Considering the improving rich multisensory communication technologies, we argue that touch may still be a promising additional modality that has the power to shift the remote social interaction even closer to face-to-face social interaction. However, finding the effective way of using touch for transferring its social effects over a distance still needs more research, especially considering the other nonverbal communication cues that are accompanied with touch, such as perception of personal space, body gestures, facial expressions, and other subtle aspects of interpersonal interaction that may cause large effects in perception of the social situation.

48 Appendix 1. Within-test questionnaire A) How realistic, or unrealistic, did you find this greeting? Very unrealistic – Unrealistic – Neutral – Realistic – Very realistic B) How pleasant, or unpleasant, did it feel to be greeted in this manner? Very unpleasant – Unpleasant – Neutral – Pleasant – Very pleasant C) How smooth, or unsmooth, was the gesturing? Very unsmooth – Unsmooth – Neutral – Smooth – Very smooth D) How comfortable, or uncomfortable, were you with being greeted in this manner? Very uncomfortable – Uncomfortable – Neutral – Comfortable – Very comfortable E) How bothered, or not bothered, were you with being greeted in this manner? Not bothered at all – Slightly bothered – Somewhat bothered – Moderately bothered – Very bothered F) How natural, or unnatural, did you find this greeting? Very unnatural – Unnatural – Neutral – Natural – Very natural G) How well, or poorly, does this greeting resemble a real greeting? Very poorly – Poorly – Neutral – Well – Very well H) How overwhelmed, or calm, did you feel when being greeted in this manner? Very calm – Calm – Neutral – Overwhelmed – Very overwhelmed

2. Post-test questionnaire 1) How fake, or natural did you feel the avatar was?* ( ) Very fake ( ) Fake ( ) Neutral ( ) Natural ( ) Very natural

2) How machinelike, or humanlike, did you feel the avatar was?* ( ) Very machinelike ( ) Machinelike ( ) Neutral ( ) Humanlike ( ) Very humanlike

3) How conscious, or unconscious did you feel the avatar was?* ( ) Very unconscious ( ) Unconscious ( ) Neutral ( ) Conscious ( ) Very conscious

4) How artificial, or lifelike did you feel the avatar was?* ( ) Very artificial ( ) Artificial ( ) Neutral ( ) Lifelike 49 ( ) Very lifelike

5) How rigidly, or elegantly did you feel the avatar was moving?* ( ) Very rigidly ( ) Rigidly ( ) Neutral ( ) Elegantly ( ) Very elegantly

Now you will read several statements. Please, indicate to what extent you agree with the statement or not.

6) I had a sense of being in the scenes displayed* Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

7) I felt I was visiting the places in the displayed environment* Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

8) I felt that the characters and/or objects were able to touch me* Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

9) The content seemed believable to me* Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

10) The displayed environment seemed natural* 50 Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

11) I had a strong sense that the characters and objects were solid* Strongly disagree ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Strongly agree

Please, evaluate the avatar that you have seen in the experiment.

12) To what extent did you find the avatar attractive or unattractive?* Not attractive at all ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Very attractive

13) To what extent did you find the avatar masculine?* Not masculine at all ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Very masculine

14) To what extent did you find the avatar feminine?* Not feminine at all ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Very feminine

You will read several statement about social encounters. Please, indicate to what extent you agree with the statement or not.

51 15) A hug from a same-sex friend is a true sign of friendship.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

16) Opposite sex friends enjoy it when I touch them.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

17) I often put my arm around friends of the same sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

18) When I see two people of the same sex hugging, it revolts me.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

19) I like it when members of the opposite sex touch me.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

20) People shouldn't be so uptight about touching persons of the same sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

21) I think it is vulgar when members of the opposite sex touch me.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

52 22) When a member of the opposite sex touches me, I find it unpleasant.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

23) I wish I were free to show emotions by touching members of the same sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

24) I'd enjoy giving a massage to an opposite sex friend.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

25) I enjoy kissing persons of the same sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

26) I like to touch friends that are the same sex as I am.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

27) Touching a friend of the same sex does not make me uncomfortable.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

28) I find it enjoyable when my date and I embrace.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

53 29) I enjoy getting a back rub from a member of the opposite sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

30) I dislike kissing relatives of the same sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

31) Intimate touching with members of the opposite sex is pleasurable.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

32) I find it difficult to be touched by a member of my own sex.* ( ) Strongly agree ( ) Agree ( ) Undecided ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly disagree

33) What did you feel during the interaction with the avatar?*

34) What did you perceive as comfortable or uncomfortable during the experiment, if anything? *

35) What is your age?*

36) What is your gender?* ( ) Male ( ) Female

37) What is your sexual orientation?* (I am interested in...) ( ) Men ( ) Women ( ) Both

38) What is your relationship state?* ( ) Single ( ) Having a partner ( ) Married 54 ( ) Other: ______

39) Is English your first language?* ( ) Yes ( ) No

40) Please specify the culture that you feel most connected to: (for example: Western / Central European, North African, South Asian culture)

41) What do you think this experiment is about?*

42) How many times have you been already participating in the virtual reality research in this lab?* ( ) Never (this is my first time) ( ) Once ( ) Few times (up to 3x) ( ) Often (3x - 6x) ( ) Very often (more than 6x)

Thank you for your participation.

3. Lab session script 1) Starting the VE, selecting conditions and genders 2) Invitation into the lab 3) Instructing participant about the risks of IVE (dizziness, motion sickness) Instructions I. 4) Checking stereoscopic vision 5) Offering the Consent Form to be signed. 6) Telling the participant the cover story: Instructions II. 7) Seating participant on a bar chair 8) Installing the vest, and Mobi 9) Installing the HMD 10) Participant is instructed to look around the room and count balls scattered around 11) Participant is informed about the function of the vest – Instructions III., and the example of the touch is demonstrated. 12) Simulate communication with a confederate. Informing that I am turning the communication on. 13) Start of the experiment 14) Avatar introduces itself: “Hello, my name is Hans (Maria)” 15) Loop for each body location (6×): a. Wait till participant’s EDA is normal (around 0) b. Start turn i. Avatar is watching the participant, and walking towards him/her ii. Avatar shows hand-gesture to the participant ( + touches on the certain body location) 55 iii. Avatar turns around and walks back to the initial position iv. Showing Within-test questionnaire + instructions. v. [researcher notes down the answers] 16) End of VE session. HMD, vest and EDA sensor are taken down. 17) Participant answers Post-test questionnaire on a computer. 18) Paying incentives, thanking, “paperwork” 19) Debriefing

Instructions I. Some people might not feel comfortable using the HMD. If you experienced a feeling of dizziness or any other discomfort, feel free to tell me at any time during the experiment, and we will stop immediately.

Instructions II. More and more of our social interaction occur online. In the future some of these may be situated in virtual environment. We are interested in such virtual meeting in the virtual environment. For one, it remains difficult to record and replay natural movements perfectly with current VR technology. In this experiment, you will be asked to evaluate different types of greetings performed in a virtual environment. The greetings are initiated by a virtual representation of my confederate who is sitting in a similar (CAVE) laboratory at Fontys. This way we will better understand the limits of current VR technology.

Please, sit down on this bar chair, in a straight, comfortable position. My confederate in the other building does not hear anything from this room, and he (she) will never get access to any data collected in this experiment. Therefore, please, answer honestly and do not hesitate to express anything that you feel or think. There is no right or wrong answer; every answer is valuable to us.

Instructions III. The vest contains vibrating motors at some body locations. These are used to simulate the touch initiated in the virtual environment. Let me show you what is might feel like.

[running the test vibration]

4. Additional figures and tables Order: 1 2 3 4 5 6 gesture location gesture location gesture location gesture location gesture location gesture location cond. 1 shoulder no stomach no arm no cond. 2 no stomach no arm no shoulder cond. 3 stomach no arm no shoulder no wave raise open wave raise open cond. 4 no arm no shoulder no stomach cond. 5 arm no shoulder no stomach no cond. 6 no shoulder no stomach no arm

Table A 1. Schema of counterbalanced experimental conditions.

56 Figure A 1. Data sheet of the vibrating motors used in vibrotactile actuators.

57