Disentangling the Effects of Social and Sensory Components of Pseudo-Haptic Touch in Virtual Reality on Ostracism

Touch is a fundamental component of our experience of the world. Affective touch refers to a specific type of tactile experience that responds preferentially to slow stroking and plays a central role in social interaction from the earliest stages of life, when the newborn begins to interact with the mother. and it is also a key pathway through which pleasure is experienced. Previous studies have shown it can also affect the evaluation of social pain cause by social exclusion. Social exclusion is studied in laboratory setting using the Cyberball game: a ball tossing game where the participant doesn’t receive the ball as much as the other players. The ETC is Virtual Reality software which tries to create the illusion of touch using pseudo haptics effects, namely visual and auditory effects. With VR raising in popularity and becoming more accessible the ETC could be a way to interact remotely and, especially for populations who are unable to experience or dislike touch (e.g. autistic individuals), carrying similar benefits to a real skin to skin contact. In the current study it was tested weather VR mediated contact could have similar benefits to affective touch after experiencing social exclusion. Furthermore 2 conditions were compared: a condition of dual interaction between the participant and another person, and another one where the interaction was between the participant and a mirrored version of his avatar. The idea is that in the second case the social component of the interaction is missing. The result showed no effect of VR touch on the evaluation of the Cyberball. Nevertheless other relevant outcomes emerged when comparing the conditions and are discussed.