Abstract
Engaging children with traditional approaches in education, especially reading, grows ever more difficult in the face of their attachment to tablets and computer games. We explore the possibility of making the story reading experience more interesting and memorable for children using haptic augmentation. In this paper, we present FeelSleeve, an interface that allows children to feel story events in their hands while they are reading on a mobile device. FeelSleeve uses transducers and audio output from the tablet within a gloved attachment to create vibratory effects that are meaningfully related to story content. We describe a study investigating whether embedding such haptic feedback into stories enhances reading for six to nine-year-olds. Our results indicate that story events accompanied by haptic feedback are better comprehended and appear to be more salient in memory. These results provide evidence that haptic effects have the potential to improve children’s reading experience and make it more memorable.
Additional Content
Copyright Notice
The documents contained in these directories are included by the contributing authors as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a non-commercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author’s copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.