Enhancing Web-based learning by sharing affective experience

We suggest that the real-time visual display of affective signals such as respiration, pulse, and skin conductivity can allow users of Web-based tutoring systems insight into each other´s felt bodily experience. This allows remotely interacting users to increase their experience of empathy, or shared feeling and has the potential to enhance telelearning. We describe an implementation of such a system and present the results of a preliminary experiment in the context of a Web-based system for tutoring the writing of Chinese characters.