Designing for Children's Social Play in Responsive Multi-sensory Environments

A responsive multi-sensory environment is designed to create an engaging experience by integrating various sensory stimuli such as sight, sound, and touch. Most prior research in the Human-computer Interaction (HCI) field has investigated its use for children with disabilities (e.g., autism) or for personal play or dyadic activities. Our work focuses on the use of responsive media for children without disabilities in primary education contexts and within a group of children. Our goal is to evaluate the capabilities of responsive multi-sensory environments, integrating wearable garments to foster children's social interaction behavior and collaboration. The enhanced garments we are developing will feature multi-channel haptic actuators, allowing players to feel tactile sensations corresponding to the proximity and activity of other peers. Additionally, virtual creatures will be projected visually an acoustic floor, which players will be able to interact with. Our design involves a series of aquatic creatures that display different "greeting" behaviors as participants stand in different proximity zones to each other.