“Ce qui manquerait le plus à cette nouvelle modalité perceptive est ce que les philosophes nomment qualia (Bach-y-Rita, 1996), c’est-à-dire les qualités des choses perçues. Malgré l’ensemble des possibilités permises par les dispositifs de substitution sensorielle, il leur est souvent reproché de ne procurer aucune émotion. Un aveugle, « regardant » sa femme grâce au TVSS, resta désappointée devant l’absence d’émotion ressentie” (Ziat, 2006, p. 64).
(“A blind man ‘looking’ at his wife thanks to the TVSS, remained disappointed at the absence of emotion he felt”).
I am so thankful you shared this in your dissertation Mounia. It has been a tenet and wish for me for several years now, to pursue cognitive psychology partially for the purpose of researching haptic transmission as a means to connect humans via touch. Your statement says so much Mounia: sight without touch is missing most of the meaning. We do not perceive to simply detect visual information about things, we perceive to confirm our hopes and feelings about what things might possess, relative to who and what we are to one another. Elaborating visual potential is often an attempt to sublimate our lost sense of touch.
The main tenet of haptic transmission is that current video/audio transmission doesn’t intrinsically contain or convey any emotion. Unlike touch, vision and sound are not exchanged - they are transduced and subsequently inferred (eyes don’t emit light and ears don’t talk). But only touch can mutually transmit feelings of warmth, adoration, fear, urgency (deep pressure) and affective identity. In the absence of the transmission of touch, we are transmitting only “facts” about people, not their feelings. The rest must be deduced from a mutual familiarity with interpreting visual expressions like gestures, tone of voice, eye aversion, latencies, etc.
Touch is so much closer to the exchange of information within thought than any other sense, because it is the only sense that is bidirectional without alteration or transduction. Whatever we transmit is what we also feel or would receive. The other senses are really for confirmation not transmission – but we have come to rely on the supporting modalities, as the concept of becoming civilized has distanced us from being human – vulnerable - to one another. In some ways, we are isolating ourselves from one another via technology and the need to do things “faster,” more efficiently. Affection takes time to express. We do not seem to have time for it anymore.
But if we take the next natural step and connect primarily via touch (reinforced by vision and sound), then parents overseas can reach children at home, and those who cannot receive or express by any other means can find hope again within the meaning expressed by comforting haptic connection. Maybe we can get back this missing dimension of distance communication – the experience of emotional attachment/reassurance itself. May I ask, Mounia – is this something of interest to you as well?
Thesis Conception et implémentation d'une fonction zoom haptique su...
Thank you both for these wonderful additional illuminations on this topic.
Sachchidanand, I am very glad you identify with sublimation and its potential role in often using a plurality of inadequate substitutes to try and make up for a single urgent need. And thank you Mounia for connecting this to developmental association. One of my favorite articles on this is about a goose which any of us can discover an instant, empathetic link with (Fischer-Mamblona, 2000). Having missed that all important developmental experience to know how to respond to inner tugs of attachment urgency and fear of isolation, this poor creature found itself outside the communicative world of nonverbal expression necessary to acquire fundamental affective needs. By human therapeutic analogy, I think perhaps we might find in the example of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller, the true potential for haptic communication of any kind. As Mounia expressed, whether for substitution of lost sensory processes, or to augment the modalities available for urgent confirmation, touch offers a path to stronger emotional attachments and lifelong growth. Please see this short video of this amazing heroic pair:
(Parent article):
http://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/2012/10/11/the-heroic-companionship-of-helen-keller-and-anne-sullivan/
(Direct link):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gv1uLfF35Uw
Mounia, thank you so much for additional enlightenment on the history and future of haptics. The need for a developmentally attained association between the peripheral sense and its affective arousal is such an excellent example of the need to extend this type of research. This helped me recall the Sullivan/Keller pairing, which for all intents is an affective coupling between persons using haptic substitution (temporarily), to transcend the missing sensory boundaries (developmentally). I also much appreciate that you shared your understanding of the need for engagement and recalibration of modalities depending on context (the scuba example). I do agree, without some means to interpose the sense of self between incoming afferent stimuli and efferent potentials, there is no way to elevate self-esteem, no proof for self-efficacy to arise, and no way to valuate the self relative to other things affectively. We need to "perceive" emotion – and we can only do that if what we perceive stimulates emotion within us. Perception is only a detached set of neuronal vibrations unless we feel we are a key stakeholder in those vibrations, and with their effort to become meaningful. The haptic zoom is a great example of how human touch adapts to any environmental scale (even the digital world).
Also, I very much appreciated your phrase “We often conclude our conversation or letters with 'Stay in touch' to reinforce the will of physical proximity” Sachchidanand. It instantly brought to mind Viktor Frankl’s wonderful “Will to Meaning” belief system (Frankl, 2006). Touch is just that: the mutual will to discover meaning - despite obstacles - by sharing something inseparably affective. We wish this for others just as we wish it for ourselves.
References
Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2012). The heroic companionship of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. Available at: http://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/2012/10/11/the-heroic-companionship-of-helen-keller-and-anne-sullivan/
Fischer-Mamblona, H. (2000). On the evolution of attachment-disordered behaviour. Attachment & Human Development, 2(1), 8-21. doi:10.1080/146167300361291
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
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