The Impact of Thermal Cues on Afective Responses to Emotionally Resonant Vibrations

This paper investigates how presenting emotionally resonant vibro-tactile stimuli at cool, neutral and warm temperature levels impacts mean ratings for emotional resonance and afective response. Affective vibrotactile stimuli can elicit pleasant or calming responses, making them applicable for emotion regulation. Evoking real-world sensations via emotional resonance can widen their afective range and improve their efectiveness, and allow them to enhance immersive multimodal experiences. Thermotactile cues have been shown to afect emotional responses, but have not been combined with emotionally resonant vibrations to see how they change responses to such cues. This study (n=20) assessed the impact of 3 temperature levels (24 degrees C, 30 degrees C, and 34 degrees C) on 15 emotionally resonant vibrotactile cues and observed if emotionally resonant stimuli exceeded the afective range non-resonant vibrotactile stimuli. The fndings suggest that presenting specifc resonant vibrations at temperatures that are appropriate for the sensation they evoke can improve emotional resonance and vice versa. In addition, temperature had a positive efect on afective response and emotionally resonant vibrations were found to have a wider afective range than traditional vibrotactile cues. These fndings support using emotionally resonant vibrations and thermal cues to elicit desirable emotional responses in emotion regulation and immersive media applications.