Starting with service robotics and industrial robotics, this paper aims to suggest philosophical reflections about the relationship between body and machine, between man and technology in our contemporary world. From the massive use of the cell phone to the robots which apparently "feel" and show emotions like humans do. From the wearable exoskeleton to the prototype reproducing the artificial ...

Pleasant touch may serve as a foundation for affiliative behavior, providing a mechanism for the formation and maintenance of social bonds among conspecifics. In humans, this touch is usually referred to as the caress. Dynamic caressing performed on the hairy skin with a velocity of 1-10 cm/s is perceived as being pleasant and determines positive cardio-physiological effects. Furthermore, imagi...

Unusual interaction behaviors and perceptual aberrations, like those occurring in schizotypy and schizophrenia, may in part originate from impaired remapping of environmental stimuli in the body space. Such remapping is contributed by the integration of tactile and proprioceptive information about current body posture with other exteroceptive spatial information. Surprisingly, no study has inve...

• Haptic stimulation of endorphin acts to bond relationships in primates and humans. Humans have found ways trigger the system virtually without touch. Virtual ‘touch’ allows humans ‘groom’ at a distance with more individuals. Touch forms central component social bonding, both humans, via brain’s system. In primates, this involves grooming, acting CT neuron Although still use soft touch for bon...

Haptotherapy is a type of mind-body therapy that makes use affective touch. This study aims to provide insights in reasons for haptotherapy patients with cancer, and experiences haptotherapists these patients. In cross-sectional study, survey was conducted among 536 Dutch haptotherapists. Multiple-choice open-ended questions were analyzed both quantitatively qualitatively. Of 272 (50.7%) respon...

According to the US NOAA, lightning is the second killer among the four major storm-related hazards, just after floods but before tornadoes and hurricanes. About 100 individuals, on average, are killed annually by lightning in the United States, and more than 500 people are injured. Up to 20 % of lightning victims die. Typical accidents are due to lightning through a direct or indirect strike t...

Global gestures on touch devices need to be detected so that this information can later be used to create checkpoints in a screen recording of the touch device. Currently, there is no uniform and legal solution to do so on devices like the iPad. We propose a system with two cameras (RGB cameras) which will be able to detect global gestures performed on any touch device (or in fact, any surface ...

In face-to-face communication and collaboration people are used to being able to both see and hear other persons. People also take for granted the possibility to give objects to each other, to shake hands or to get someone’s attention by a pat on the shoulder. However, most systems for mediated collaboration do not take physicality into account. Now emerging media space technologies like threed...

Research shows that preschoolers are likely to anthropomorphize not only animals, but also inanimate toy after being exposed to books that personify these objects. Can such an effect also arise through young children's use of touch-screen games? The present study is the first to examine whether playing a touch-screen personified train game affects young children's anthropomorphism of real train...