Mirror-touch synaesthesia is a condition where observing touch to another's body induces a subjective tactile sensation on the synaesthetes body. The present study explores which characteristics of the inducing stimulus modulate the synaesthetic touch experience. Fourteen mirror-touch synaesthetes watched videos depicting a touch event while indicating (i) whether the video induced a tactile se...

Touch is one of the most natural methods of navigation available to the blind. In this paper, we propose a method to enhance a person's use of touch by placing range sensors coupled with vibrators throughout their body. This would allow them to be able to feel objects and obstacles in close proximity to them, without having to physically touch them. In order to make effective use of this vibrot...

We probe C. elegans mechanosensation using a microfabricated platform where worms encounter a linear array of asymmetric funnel-like barriers. We found that sensing of and moving along barriers require different sets of neurons located at different parts of the animal. Wild-type worms sense and move along the barrier walls, leading to their accumulation in one side of the barriers due to the ba...

We experience our own body through both touch and vision. We further see that others' bodies are similar to our own body, but we have no direct experience of touch on others' bodies. Therefore, relations between vision and touch are important for the sense of self and for mental representation of one's own body. For example, seeing the hand improves tactile acuity on the hand, compared to seein...

Our research aim is to build a harmonized humanmachine environment where humans and machines can interact with each other in a natural, seamless and intuitive manner. Along the sketched scenario, we have been developing a humanoid robot "iSHA" (interactive Systems for Humanoid Agent), which is designed to behave like and interact with humans. We implemented an intelligent robotic architecture, ...

abstract memento photographs is the one in which the memory element is more recognizable than any other types of photograph like, snapshot, family photos, personal and domestic ones. in fact the role “memory” is the witness of the time. from the time which camera was invented, its capacity to record the scars of the time made it the popular art among the others. according to the camera’s abilit...

"Paganism not only holds a solution to our environmental crisis ... it can bring about a revolution in the way our culture makes sense of reality. For Paganism puts us back in touch with the body; by reconnecting our wordy analytical culture with the physical self, Paganism brings us back to the Earth" (Harris, 1995: 149). Stirring stuff, certainly, but does the rhetoric hold? Though I first sp...

New devices for the interaction between humans and computers open undiscovered opportunities for designers and organizational researchers. One of those is the multi-touch technology: without mouse and keyboard, the display recognizes simultaneous multiple fingers pressure from various users, unlike its precursor touchscreen which detects only one touch pressure. Like many other participative to...