title: Body-centred Interactive Textiles for Emotion Regulation
Creators: name: Jiang, Mengqi
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2026

description: Textiles have always been an important carrier for people to express their emotions. Wearable technology brings the power of computing closer to the body, which has led to the rising focus of bodily emotion-related interactive textiles design. Body motion-engaged affective design for emotion regulation also become a trend in games and interactive art, but the advantages of interactive textiles in this direction have not been thoroughly studied. This research aims to answer the overarching question: What are the key factors influencing body-centred interactive textiles design for emotion regulation? First, we conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on emotion-related interactive textiles design and combed the current state of body-centred interactive textiles and the opportunities that exist. From this, we discussed its research directions in (1) exploring the materiality of interactive textiles, (2) integrating body motion into interaction, and (3) creating sensory stimuli with body-centred interactive textiles. Then, we investigated the research question following the Research through Design approach and verified the feasibility of regulating emotion through body-centred interactive textiles. Five sub-research questions were identified to concrete the research direction. In the design research and practice, first, we identified effective gross movement-based interactive textiles with multi-sensory feedback mechanisms for emotion regulation and created the E-motionWear prototype for participants to test in the lab and real life. Then, we presented GesFabri, a collection of five interactive textile interfaces with distinct textures. They were created to investigate the intuitive interaction gestures of textile texture and the emotional effects of the fine movement-based interfaces with four sensory feedback mechanisms. Last, we developed iPillowPal, an affective movement-based interaction pillow for emotional communication and engagement between long-distance relationship (LDR) partners. We conducted a user study, lab study, and field study to achieve this goal. The results revealed that (1) wearing the gross movement-based interactive textiles positively impacted the users’ immediate emotion regulation, and users presented a more positive attitude towards their work. (2) both fine movement-based interaction on textiles and the feedback mechanism influenced user emotions, also highlighted the potential of materiality in designing interactive textiles, (3) affective movements vary on the scenario, serve a specific emotional purpose, and generate a particular emotional response. The affective movement-based interactive textiles shortened the emotional distance of LDR couples and improved their emotional state. Multi experimental results show that several emotion regulation strategies can be applied to body-centred interactive textiles design. Based on the findings, we summarized our research through the lenses of body movement, feedback mechanism, textile materiality, and emotion types, then reflected on the research approach and methods, design implication, and proposed future work directions. This study offers a new perspective on the potential of emotion regulation with interactive textiles and will contribute to a deeper understanding of body-centred affective design.