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Unity-Warmth: Positional and Thermal Sensation Presentation System Through a Display

Authors:
Suguru Sato
Kagura Itokazu
Yuhei Akamine
Yui Kita
Emi Tamaki

Keywords: HCI; Human Interaction; Human Interface; Telepresence

Abstract:
In long-distance relationships, partners experience poor communication between partners because of the lacking physical existence. Current computer-mediated communication causes two types of related discomfort: "visual" and "somatosensory". This study aims to emphasize the existence (of a distant partner) by reducing these discomforts. A hypothesis about reducing these discomforts by adjusting the "visual size ratio", "consistency of position sense", and "thermal sense" was made. In the suggested system, Unity-Warmth, the communication methods are adjusted to be close to those in real life, in terms of body size, hand-contact position, and body temperature. Unity-Warmth consists of a touch panel display that can project half of someone's life-size image and a transparent heater that conveys the body's warmth. An experiment verified the effectiveness of Unity-Warmth by comparing the conventional system (Zoom Meetings) with Unity-Warmth. The results show that Unity-Warmth emphasizes five out of six types of existence: the sense that the interlocutor is "being there", the sense of participating with the interlocutor, the sense of being in the same space as the interlocutor, the realism of the interlocutor, and consistency with real-world communication experience. In the future, Unity-Warmth can be applied to communication between people who struggle to meet in person and express physical intimacy, such as "grandparents and grandchildren" and "celebrities and their fans".

Pages: 78 to 87

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2022

Publication date: June 26, 2022

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4138

ISBN: 978-1-61208-982-9

Location: Porto, Portugal

Dates: from June 26, 2022 to June 30, 2022