Heartbeats: A methodology to convey interpersonal distance through touch

Individuals who are blind are at a disadvantage when interacting with sighted peers given that nearly 65% of interaction cues are non-verbal in nature [3]. Previously, we proposed an assistive device in the form of a vibrotactile belt capable of communicating interpersonal positions (direction and distance between users who are blind and the other participants involved in a social interaction). In this paper, we extend our work through use of novel tactile rhythms to provide access to the non-verbal cue of interpersonal distance, referred to as Proxemics in popular literature. Experimental results reveal that subjects found the proposed approach to be intuitive, and they could accurately recognize the rhythms, and hence, the interpersonal distances.