Spotted: CheekTouch -- can we deliver telecaresses?


How do couples use CheekTouch over phone calls?

Young-Woo Park, Seok-Hyung Bae, Tek-Jin Nam

In this paper we introduce CheekTouch, an affective audio-tactile communication technique that transmits multi-finger touch gestures applied on a sender's mobile phone to a receiver's cheek in real time during a call. We made a pair of CheekTouch prototypes each with a multi-touch screen and vibrotactile display to enable bidirectional touch delivery. We observed four romantic couples in their twenties using our prototype system in a lab setting over five consecutive days, and analyzed how CheekTouch affected their non-verbal and emotional communication.