A computational model to relay emotions with tactile stimuli

Haptic sensations have a long history of semantic relationship with various cognitive states and communication experiences. In developing multimedia interfaces, engineers would benefit greatly from knowing how sense of touch relates to human emotions. An important step in understanding this relationship is to study possible links between linguistic representations of the major haptic and emotional groups. This paper describes an attempt to reveal the semantic associations between basic categories of emotion and primary haptic sensations apparently existing in a culturally homogeneous group. A computational model is proposed to relay emotional experiences assessed on scales of ¿pleasure-unpleasure¿ and ¿anxiety-boredom¿ with a standard haptic display, such as PHANToM. The model is defined in basic terms of physics, and can be used in virtually any application supporting haptic environments.