Table 2.
Mediated social touch functions in distant communication.
| Dimensions of functions (Vion, 1992) | Functions of mediated touch (Héron et al., 2022) | Descriptions of the functions |
|---|---|---|
| Interaction management | Turn-taking | The addressee touches to take the turn. |
| Backchannel (Continuer) | The addressee gives indications to the speaker of their attention | |
| Turn-giving | The speaker indicates that their turn is over with a touch. | |
| Beat | The speaker produces rhythmic tactile behaviours related to the prosodic structure of the speech, which do not convey any semantic information. | |
| Meaning Making | Emphasis | Speakers tend to emphasise certain words or phrases (mostly strong emotional content) with co-occurring touch behaviours. |
| Referring (Understanding) | Speakers touch when determining the object of their interaction sequence. These touches co-occur with deictic word (e.g., “that,” “the one on the right”) and gestures (e.g., pointing, turning the head), or with implicit content (e.g., participants omitting the end of a story, alluding) and its mutual understanding (e.g., “okay!,” “ah!”). | |
| Modulating (Playful interaction and Treading Carefully) | The speaker touches to modulate their speech so that their partner understands it to be playful, ironic or apologetic for instance. | |
| Relationship maintenance | Positive Affect | Interactants communicate positive affects such as love, tenderness, support. |
| Closeness | Interactants use the device to maintain a sense of closeness between them. Touching is often explained as mimed caressing. | |
| Play (Mimicry) | The interactants play with the device. This can be a question-and-answer game with the device, or to repeat the partner’s touch. | |
| Adaptors (Doodle) | The interactant uses the device as they would manipulate a pen or a rubber band or scratch themselves for example, mainly while listening to their partners, but also while speaking. | |
The table presents the categories of interactions functions proposed by Vion (1992) with which the functions of mediated touch observed by Héron et al. (2022) have been matched. The last column described each function. Adaptors is a term proposed by Lefebvre (2008), corresponds to Doodle-like touches and seats outside the presented dimensions.