Affective touch has a fundamental role in human development, social bonding, and for providing emotional support in interpersonal relationships. With FORET, we are exploring ways to establish trust between people and robots. One way to establish this trust is to add methods of communication and understand how such communications are perceived by humans.
By exploring different types of Tactile Human–Robot Interactions (Tactile HRI) and developing a Tactile User Interface (TUI) for FOREST to innervate and activate functions and sounds, we hope to find new ways to help humans experience emotions, and to develop trust and connections with robot dancers. I also integrated tactile interactions with robot dancers into artistic practices by designing a FOREST concert piece, Tourist in the Forest.