20160403 Article Summary

The Haptic Creature Project: Social Human-Robot Interaction through Affective Touch

The article starts the discussion on the Haptic Creature Project with a brief mention on the lack of attention given to the interaction design concerning touch in comparison with that concerning vision and audition. Then it states that it will focus on mainly four research areas regarding the given project. That includes socially interactive robotics, affect, touch and human-animal interaction.
In its discussion on socially interactive robotics the article says that affect display has been used for social interaction. Yet, this too has been focused primarily on the vision and audition. So their method for affect display is to utilise tactile information. Thus they came up with the idea of "affective touch." However, they found that this has made users feel discomfort in various ways. Thus, they have decided to focus on human-animal interaction. Therefore, the Haptic Creature.
This Haptic Creature has three major design consideration. First is using the modality of touch. Second is having organic design. That is to make it feel real when interacting with it. And the last is zoomorphism. Though it borrows different traits from animals, it does not constrain itself to a single species. 
The main goal of creating this Haptic Creature was to discover "the use of affect touch in socially interactive robotics." And the main focus was on "display, recognition and influence of this form of touch."

"Moon Phrases": A Social Media Facilitated Tool for Emotional Reflection and Wellness

The article introduces its topic by stressing the importance of emotional wellbeing. And it gives examples of the attempts people make to examine and ensure their psychological conditions. It then argues that this examining process should be taken more often and more regularly. It also explains that it should utilise the data which tell the most out of a person's emotional state. Thus it draws a very defined solution that they should use social networking system for checking and ensuring emotional condition for users. The design concept that they came up with is developing this system called "Moon Phrases." This system collects data from Twitter. Through analysing the social interaction displayed in the user's social media behaviour, Moon Phrases helps users reflect on their emotional state and bring about suggestions for their emotional wellness. Basically, Moon Phrases becomes a "behavioural fingerprint" of users.