Hedonic and autonomic responses in promoting affective touch

Abstract

Interpersonal touch is intrinsically reciprocal since it entails a person promoting and another receiving the touch. While several studies have investigated the beneficial effects of receiving affective touch, the affective experience of caressing another individual remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated the hedonic and autonomic responses (skin conductance and heart rate) in the person promoting affective touch. We also examined whether interpersonal relationship, gender, and eye contact modulate these responses. As expected, caressing the partner was perceived as more pleasant than caressing a stranger, especially if the affective touch occurred together with mutual eye contact. Promoting affective touch to the partner also resulted in a decrease of both autonomic responses and anxiety levels, suggesting the occurrence of a calming effect. Additionally, these effects were more pronounced in females compared to males, indicating that hedonic and autonomic aspects of affective touch are modulated by both social relationship and gender. These findings show for the first time that caressing a beloved one is not only pleasant but also reduces autonomic responses and anxiety in the person promoting the touch. This might suggest that affective touch has an instrumental role for romantic partners in promoting and reinforcing their affective bonding.

Autonomic and hedonic response to affective touch in autism spectrum disorder

“…While recent studies have delved into understanding the physiological responses associated with affective touch in neurotypical individuals (Chatel-Goldman et al, 2014;Mazza et al, 2023;Triscoli et al, 2017), the only study that has focused on autonomic responses to affective touch in children with ASD has reported an overall hypoactivation in ASD children compared to TD peers (Bufo et al, 2022). Bufo et al (2022) have proposed that the diminished autonomic activation observed in ASD children when receiving affective touch could be attributed to a reduced engagement reaction commonly found in the ASD population.…”

“…Recent research has started to examine in TD individuals autonomic nervous system responses-pupil dilation, skin conductance, and heart rate activity-evoked by affective touch (Chatel-Goldman et al, 2014;Gusso et al, 2021;Mazza et al, 2023;Triscoli et al, 2017) but to our knowledge only one study has investigated physiological responses to affective touch within the ASD population and has reported an overall hypoactivation in children with ASD compared to TD children (Bufo et al, 2022). Nevertheless, the limited research on autonomic responses to affective touch in adults with ASD, coupled with the observed dissociation between explicit and implicit outcomes in this population-present in other sensory domains (Mazza et al, 2020) -underscores the necessity for additional investigations.…”

Modelling the early affect response to vibrotactile stimulation in the cortex: A source-based spatiotemporal analysis

“…Among the various brain structures, SCx is of particular interest in relation to the tactile affect. Although it is the primary cortical structure involved in the tactile processing of discriminative touch [22]- [27], responses from the SCx have been shown to be modulated, when affect was induced by other modalities of stimulation such as visual stimulation [28], [29]. Affective disorders like stress [30], depression [31], [32] and bipolar disorder [33] have also shown abnormal modulations in the SCx indicating that SCx may at least partially encode affect.…”

Affective Touch is encoded by pupil dilation as a comprehensive social phenomenon

“…The complex interplay between Affective Touch, emotions, and the autonomic nervous system has been extensively investigated through psychophysiological responses. Notably, Affective Touch has been shown to induce an increase in skin conductance (Olausson et al, 2008): a response that can be influenced by salient contextual factors both in the person receiving the touch (Nava et al, 2021) and in the person promoting it (Mazza et al, 2023a). In line with the notion that Affective Touch can also serve as a potential buffer against stressful situations (Mazza et al, 2023b;Morrison, 2016a) it has been linked to reductions in blood pressure (Grewen et al, 2005;Lee and Cichy, 2020), stress hormone levels (Heinrichs et al, 2003;Henricson et al, 2008) and heart rate (Pawling et al, 2017;Triscoli et al, 2017) along with an increase in heart rate variability (Triscoli et al, 2017).…”