Haptics for stress regulation is well developed these years. Using vibrotactile to present biofeedback, guiding breathing or heartbeat regulation is a dominant technical approach. However, designing computer-mediated affective touch for stress regulation is also a promising way and has not been fully explored. In this paper, a haptic device was developed to test whether the computer-mediated affective stroking on the forearm could help to assist people in reducing stress. In our method, we used mid-air technology to generate subtle pressure force by blowing air and generating thermal feedback by using Peltier elements simultaneously. Firstly, we found intensity and velocity parameters to present comfort and pleasant stroking sensations. Afterward, an experiment was conducted to find out whether this approach could help people mediate their perceived and physiological stress. A total of 49 participants were randomly assigned to either a Stroking Group (SG) or a Control Group (CG). Results showed that participants from SG felt more relaxed than those from CG. The physiological stress index, RMSSD, increased and LF/HF decreased in SG although these changes were not statistically significant. Our exploration created subtle, non-invasive, noiseless haptic sensations. It could be a promising alternative for assisting people in stress regulation. Design implications and future applicable scenarios were discussed.

How to use mediated technology helping people regulate emotion is a popular topic in HCI community. Using Haptic instead of other sensory stimuli becomes a new trend. In this paper, we present WindCheck, a wearable device using wind as feedback and helping individuals notice their heartbeat and aware their emotion states. We first designed the protype and did the user studies to set wrist as a better body location to wear the device. Then we updated our protype and did an experiment according previous studies by using false feedback of a slow heart rate to regulate users’ anxiety. The result showed that the WindCheck kept the anxiety of the individuals in low levels in math challenge task. User studies showed that the feedback of wind could not only be a new stimulus in the strategy of emotion regulation, but also potentials for other design situations. We discuss the possibilities and future directions of the work.