Abstract. We report the results of a preliminary study testing the effect of participants’ mood rating on visual motor performance using a haptic device to manipulate a cartoonish human body. Our results suggest that moods involving high arousal (e.g. happiness) produce larger movements whereas mood involving low arousal (e.g. sadness) produce slower speed of performance. Our results are used for the development of a new haptic virtual reality application that we briefly present here. This application is intended to create a more interactive and motivational environment to treat body image issues and for emotional communication. Keywords. Haptics, Virtual reality, Mood, Body image. Introduction Interpersonal touch serves several adaptive functions such as soothing, signaling safety, reinforcing reciprocity and contributes to the cognitive and socioemotional development [1]. Interpersonal touch elicits and modulates human emotions and can convey immediacy and produce an effect more powerful than language (for a review see Gallace and Spence [2]). Despite its importance, Gallace and Spence [2] pointed out the fact that ‘
['Line Tremblay', 'Stéphane Bouchard', 'Brahim Chebbi', 'Lai Wei', 'Johana Monthuy-Blanc', 'Dominic Boulanger']
The development of a haptic virtual reality environment to study body image and affect.