ConTact without touch Touch and Communication in virtual

Con-Tact without touch? Touch and Communication in virtual environments Barbara Becker Universität Paderborn

Content • I: Phenomenological concepts of body and touch --> Background of my analysis • II: Bodies and Contact in virtual communication environments • III: Embodied emotional Agents: Communication of humans and machines

First Part: Phenomenological conceptions of body and touch

Characteristics of the body (Merleau-Ponty, Waldenfels, Meyer-Drawe. . ) • Presence: The body is always there -we cannot get rid of our physical being in the world • Double sensation: We are always subject and object in the same moment (CHIASMUS) • Situated in the world: As corporal subjects we are always integrated in a social and „natural“ environment

Charcteristics of the body ff • Selfsplitting: In observing ourselves, there is a split between me as an observed object and me as an observer • Blind space: This observer position includes a blind or unmarked space • Strangeness: Corporal existence implies remaining a stranger to oneself to some extent

Responsivity • The individual is irretrievable embedded in a situation and in a social context • There affordances of this specific environment to which the corporal „Subject“ answers • Our senses and our „socially being in the world“ enable us to re-act to the implicit demands without being always aware of this

Reciprocity • Intentions, actions and reflections are not products of a solipsistic, individual person, but are integrated in complex interactional processes • Meaning emerges in these reciprocal interactions

Communication as Response --> Communication cannot be described by a simple sender-receiver model, because the communicative actor already re-acts to the implicit demands and corporal signs of the other - there is a continuous implicit as well as explicit dialogue between the interaction partners (dialogicité)

Decentration of the Actor • The actor has to be regarded as a RE-actor, whose intentions and actions are influenced by the explicit and implicit affordances of the „Other“ • The intentional dominating subject has to be given up by replacing it through the concept of an „Answering Ego“ • Corporal Ego = „treshhold existence“

Part II: Touch • Touch: an amalgamation of passivity and activity • The touching person is subject and object in the same moment • Selfsplitting, ambiguity and implicitness of touch: --> treshhold existence of the individual

Touch Two different perspectives: 1) Touch as a cognitive (gnostic) process, linked to intentional actions 2) Touch as something which happens to someone, independent of subjective intentions

Touch as a cognitive process • Important approach to the world in the cognitive development of children • Relevant in science and medicine (method of empirical verification) • Necessary in arts (tactile exploration of esthetic material) --> Touch is an intentional approach to something, accompanied by action and always influenced by the touched instance

Touch as a „pathic“ process • Touch happens to somebody, one is touched by something • Touch as a concrete tactile event which occurs to somebody (physical process) • Touch as an emotional feeling • Touch as Con-Tact (touch as an act of communication)

Touch as „a silent dialogue with the world“ Touch is a continuous and neverending contact with the world (we are always in contact with something or somebody) • Being-in-Touch with the world implies an impregnation and „infection“ by the world • Touch evocates a dimension of implicite meaning and creates subtle atmospheres (which influence our behavior)

Touch as a silent dialogue II • Touch means to be affected and moved by the Other • Touch evocates emotions • In touching something or somebody, one is imbued with the other • Touch reveals the continuous chiasmus of subject and object

Touch and the strangeness of the Other • Touch illuminates the strangeness of one s own and of the Other • Gaps between me and the Other (human or physical object) become apparent in touch • In touching something, the resistance and own dynamic of i. e. materiality is perceivable • Tactile experience shows the limits of control • The experience of touch remains implicite to a large extent - it creates a „surplus du sens“

Touch III • Touch elucidates the continuous amalgamation of the alien and the own without creating a unity - differences still remain • Touch is a never-ending process of „dialogicité“ • Touch is an oscillation between proximity and distance

Part III: Touch/Con-Tact in virtual environments • Touching virtual objects • Con-Tact between humans which present themselves by texts and/or avatars • Con-Tact of humans and virtual agents (embodied conversational agents --> Which kind of touch is taken place in VE?

Touch as a gnostic process in virtual environments • Touching virtual objects: the resistance of materiality cannot be sensed, the „dialogue“ between subject and object is interrupted • The own complex dynamic of the material object is no longer experienced in VE • In VE, significance does not emerge in a responsive relation, but depends on individual ascriptions.

Touch as a pathic process in VE • The „silent dialogue“ between me and the object is cut up in VE • Limited mainly to our visual and acoustic senses, the implicit demands of the object are seldom perceivable in VE • In VE, the „Otherness“ of the Other can easily be blanked out by projections and imaginations

Con-TACT: Corporal communication I Implictness of body movements (bodymovements can tell more or something different than our verbal communication) • Unconscousness of mimic and gesture (we are often not aware of what we are expressing with our gestures and facial expressions)

Corporal communication II • Ambiguity of body signs: (The „message“ of the body is often difficult to interpret) • Intercorporality (Social embeddedness): (Often, we act in anticipating the expectation and reaction of the other) • Undeterminability of significance: (body signs produce a multiperspective and pluralistic space of meaning)

Communication in VE • Body signs are reduced to simple gestures presented by Avatars • Intercorporality do not exist • Facial expressions are rarely integrated in the communicative process (smilies) • Reciprocal relations seldom come up • Atmospheres will rarely be evocated

Evaluation (based on an emprical survey) • The strangeness and unavailibility of the counterpart in interaction can easily be blanked out • The intentions and actions of an actor are no longer irritated by the demands of the Other • INTERCORPORALITY does not exist in VR

Con-Tact does not take place in cyperspace • The other one, presented by text or an avatar, remains mainly a product of the own imagination • The others are becoming controllable objects of own projections and phantasies • The strangeness and otherness of the partner in interaction can be integrated in the own space of semantics or even be ignored • The „answering Ego“ is replaced by a dominating subject (again)

Response and Responsibility • Responsivity will not emerge in virtual contacts (we are not in touch with each other) • We are seldom touched/moved by the other one because we can keep distance to the other • Reciprocal communication will seldom take place • We dont have to overtake responsibility for the other, because their demands have not to be answered

Problems Evocating responsive relationships in virtual environments meets fundamental difficulties, if people are not in contact in „reality“. In particular, feeling responsible for the other intensify the problem of keeping distance, which exists in our society in general. ----> Open Question: How can RESPONSIBILITY for the otherone can be evocated in virtual environments? ?

„Communication“ with embodied virtual agents à 1. 2. 3. Assumption, that humanlike avatars facilitate communication between human and machine Construction of emotional embodied agents in the field of: Education Information/Advice Entertainment

Virtual agents ==> Embodied emotional conversational agents (ECA´s) • They have a virtual body • They seem to express feelings by facial mimics • They „communicate“ via language and gestures • They can take up different body postures

Perspectives of constructing ECAs • „Making interactions between humans and machines more natural“ (Wachsmuth/Knoblich 2005) • „Construction of believable virtual interaction partners“(Pelauchaud/Poggi 2005) • Facilitating and manintainance of the communicational process by humanoid virtuel agents (research program Humaine 2004)

Emotional believable Agents • Construction method: 1. ) Observing humans: - conversation analysis via video, - observing actors while they express feelings (in films or TV shows. . ) 2. ) Classifying their expressions by construction emotional categories: - sadness, anger, happiness, disgust, astonishment. . .

Constructing ECA´s II 3. ) Conceptualization of abstract schemes which construct an interrelation between a facial expression, gestures and body bostures and a specific emotional state 4. ) Design of emotional conversational agents with a very simplified imitation of mimic and facial expressions according to the described feeling

How do they look like? • Abstract models without „individuality“ • Stereotypes according to cultural conventions • Extremely limited „expressivity“ of body language (i. e. gesture is reduced to a sign) • Emotionality is reduced to some minimalistic „facial mimic“

Problems • The plurality, contingency and complexity of corporal expressions are ignored • The ambiguity of individual corporality and corporal expressions are neglected • The contextual embeddedness as well as the situatedness of corporal existence has been replaced by abstract models • Intercorporality (our social-being-in-the-world) is not considered

Being in touch with virtual agents? • Embodiment and Emotions are realised in agents only on a simplified behavioural level • The spectrum of observable emotions is extremely limited and unambiguous • ECA´s don´t have or experience the feeling which they imitate physically - the dichotomy between the experienced body and the physical body is restituated by these experiments

Possible Consequences • Research about embodiement and emotions in this field is dominated by behavioristical and psychophysiological approaches • This corresponds to general tendencies of naturalisation (example: discussion about mirror cells as an explanation for intersubjectivity) • The stereotypized ECAs support a social tendency of normalization (by categorizing emotions)