Cross-Cutting Challenge | Touch, Embodiment, and Multisensory Future

Last updated: December 1, 2025.

Organizers

Marie Holm
Kolding School of Design
Anna Queiroz
University of Miami

Description

Touch is the first sense we develop and, often, the last we lose. It anchors us in the world, grounding memory, emotion, and embodied presence. More than a channel for perceiving and responding to our environment, touch is a fundamental mode of knowing - a bridge between the self and the world. Yet, in our current digital era of modern society, the haptic and tactile dimensions of experience remain underexplored and largely overshadowed by visual and auditory paradigms, placing us at risk of moving toward an increasingly disembodied digital age. As the Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa wrote in the initial wave of digital transformation in 1996; “The world of touch is largely unconscious and forgotten, yet it is the sense that integrates our experience of reality and of ourselves” We are led to question: How might haptic technologies shape our sensory and tactile connections in digital futures, and influence our very perception of reality?

This Cross-Cutting Challenge brings together perspectives from design, cognitive sciences, psychology, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), haptics research, and emerging technologies such as extended reality and artificial intelligence. Exploring how physically embodied interventions can transform digital spaces. It is about identifying underexplored opportunities for haptic applications and investigating the psychological effects of haptic experiences across contexts, from education to emotional connection and well-being. We aim to re-centre touch as a vital dimension of immersive experiences, asking: How can haptics move beyond technical novelty to become a medium of care, learning, and human connection? Highlighting haptics as a pathway for more human-centred and future-oriented approaches, inviting cross-disciplinary dialogue on how we design touch in our digital era for meaningful impact.

The motivation behind this Cross-Cutting Challenge is twofold:

(1) to bridge disciplinary silos by connecting researchers and practitioners who investigate haptics from diverse perspectives and fields, addressing the challenge of how haptic research can support positive societal change.

(2) to articulate how tactile and sensory interventions can transform our digital spaces and how multisensory experiences can be integrated into different environments, designing hybrid environments where physical and digital interactions converge and how we can ensure these technologies are developed inclusively and responsibly.

By engaging these themes and questions across disciplines, this CCC seeks to advance a collective vision of haptics not as an isolated technical feature, but as a transformative modality for future applications and multisensory experiences. This CCC session invites us to reflect on the challenge of the shifting role of immersive and multisensory experiences as both a scientific frontier and a human-centred practice. Through open discussions, keynote talks and live demo sessions, this session offers new knowledge on how haptic research can inform and shape ethical, inclusive, and adaptive multisensory futures, fostering the understanding that haptics is not merely a matter of feedback, but a relational practice, linking body and world, and bridging knowledge across disciplines.

Keynote Talks

TBD

Interactive Posters

TBD

Call for Individual Contributions

We invite attendees to contribute to this Cross-Cutting Challenge through poster or demonstration submissions, which will be presented in an interactive session designed to foster dialogue, exchange, and hands-on engagement. This session aims to create an open and inclusive space where diverse perspectives and approaches to haptics can be shared, discussed, and experienced, supporting cross-disciplinary learning and expanding how we collectively understand touch as a meaningful modality in digital futures.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, topics such as embodied interaction, multisensory experience design, psychological or emotional effects of haptics, hybrid physical and digital environments, care, learning, well-being, or critical and speculative approaches to touch in digital systems.

To submit a poster or demonstration proposal, please send the following information in a single email:

Email subject line: CCC Demo Proposal: IEEE Haptics Symposium 2026

We particularly encourage submissions from contributors with disciplinary backgrounds that are currently underrepresented in the haptics community, including but not limited to design, art, architecture, humanities, social sciences, healthcare, education, and creative practice. Both theoretical and practice-based work are welcome.

Please submit your proposal by February 1, 2026, by emailing the organisers ( 2021b067@dskd.dk , aqueiroz@miami.edu ).