E-textiles for emotion interaction: a scoping review of trends and opportunities

There has been a proliferation of emotion-related interactive textiles in recent years. This research conducted a comprehensive scoping review of the literature on emotion-related interactive textiles design. In total, 75 design studies were identified from their abstracts and analyzed with social network analysis and text mining methods. These studies were categorized into different aims (emotion expression, emotion communication, emotion reflection, emotion regulation, emotional effect, emotional experience, and emotion analysis). This review also analyzed details of prototypes and experimental design, such as textile form, textile function, feedback mechanism, experiment method, evaluation scale, and empirical findings. Then we evaluated these studies based on the relationship of their research aim, textiles, emotion, interaction mechanism, etc. The findings suggest that interactive textiles can aid in emotion presentation, modulation, and creating unique emotional experiences. Interactive textiles, feedback mechanisms, and bodily interaction all serve essential functions and benefit emotional interaction. Last, this review reflected on the critical research directions of emotion-related interactive textiles, including connecting interactive textiles with biofeedback, designing interactive textiles with sensory feedback mechanisms, and increasing bodily interaction for dynamic emotion. Further, this research provided insights into the research gaps, from elaborating on the experiment and exploring the materiality of interactive textiles to concerning privacy and user acceptance. Interactive textiles bridge textiles and emotion together to aid emotional well-being in people’s daily lives.