Haptics

I keep noticing this phenomenon where experiencing one sensation makes me feel another.

Like I understand vibrating a phone or controller as an indicator.

But how come watching this video makes me feel like a fan is blowing on me?

How come touching a virtual screen with my Quest 3 makes me feel like there’s force feedback of the device, despite my hand floating in the air?

The brain is so powerful that I can’t help but feel some kind of magic from time to time when there’s a gap between what I should perceive and what I actually do.

Interacting with virtual replicas replays memories like a music box.

On Haptic Feedback of Human Interaction

I’ve started feeling this way about people too.

We can kind of feel what a person is like 100% of the time from a sparse sample of their behavior.

As I repeat certain types of interactions over and over, I start to pick up on who I think is a good person and who is masking it, who cares and who is masking it.

But some people have mastered the art of getting you to feel a certain way. The charmers or whatever. But you’ll always eventually figure out if you’re being charmed because it’s only a temporary effect. In the long run, your gut instinct will always be right.

I might feel like a fan is blowing on my raised hairs, but I never feel cold.

I might feel like swiping on a virtual screen gives me the sensation of touch, but I still long to be held.

I might feel like a charmer cares about me, but when they leave I still feel empty.

We need to fuse real sensation with the digital, not substitute one for the other.

I used to think that meant no virtual reality, but now I think we need to infuse digital devices with physical sensation.