The science of interpersonal touch: An overview

Gallace, Alberto; Spence, Charles

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2008.10.004

Cited by 648 publications

(509 citation statements)

References 161 publications

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“…While these authors used robot-controlled tactile stimulation, we relied on manually applied touch. It cannot be excluded that the situation of interpersonal touch leads to a neural response that is different from that of automated stimulation (Gallace & Spence, 2010). In the illusion experiment by Brugger and Meier (2015), mentioned above, a tactile motion stimulus elicited an RM-like effect, but there the endpoint was predefined (crook of the elbow) and participants had to indicate when this endpoint was reached.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Tactile motion lacks momentum

Macauda

Lenggenhager

Meier

et al. 2017

Psychological Research

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The displacement of the final position of a moving object in the direction of the observed motion path, i.e. an overestimation, is known as Representational Momentum. It has been described both in the visual and auditory modality, and is suggested to be modality-independent.Here, we tested whether a Representational Momentum can also be demonstrated in the somatosensory domain. While the cognitive literature on Representational Momentum suggests that it can, previous work on the psychophysics of tactile motion perception would rather predict an underestimation of the perceived endpoint of a tactile stimulus. Tactile motion stimuli were applied on the left and the right dorsal forearms of 32 healthy participants, who were asked to indicate the subjectively perceived endpoint of the stimulation. Velocity and direction of the trajectory was varied. Contrary to the prediction based on the Representational Momentum literature, participants in our experiment significantly displaced the endpoint against the direction of movement (underestimation). The results are thus compatible with previous psychophysical findings on the perception of tactile motion. Further studies combining paradigms from classical psychophysics and cognitive psychology will be needed to resolve the apparently paradoxical predictions by the two literatures.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Tactile motion lacks momentum

Macauda

Lenggenhager

Meier

et al. 2017

Psychological Research

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“…This suggests that current models may underestimate the role played by SI in the affective processing of social touch. T he exact same sensual caress can feel divine from a person we find attractive, and aversive from one we find repulsive (1,2). Although a large literature documents the powerfully emotional nature of interpersonal touch and its significance in everyday life, we still lack a thorough understanding of how the brain processes this class of stimulus.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Although a large literature documents the powerfully emotional nature of interpersonal touch and its significance in everyday life, we still lack a thorough understanding of how the brain processes this class of stimulus. In particular, we seek to know how somatosensory information in touch is integrated with the visual features (e.g., attractiveness) of the person giving the caress to produce emotional responses (2). Prevailing models of how the brain processes the sensory and affective properties of gentle touch have drawn predominantly on experiments that used inanimate objects with varying textures, rather than interpersonal touch (2,3), or from the known neural organization of unmyelinated, Ctactile (CT) fibers in hairy skin (4-7), which respond specifically to light touch (8) and project to and activate the insula, but project to and inhibit the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) (9,10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, we seek to know how somatosensory information in touch is integrated with the visual features (e.g., attractiveness) of the person giving the caress to produce emotional responses (2). Prevailing models of how the brain processes the sensory and affective properties of gentle touch have drawn predominantly on experiments that used inanimate objects with varying textures, rather than interpersonal touch (2,3), or from the known neural organization of unmyelinated, Ctactile (CT) fibers in hairy skin (4-7), which respond specifically to light touch (8) and project to and activate the insula, but project to and inhibit the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) (9,10). Differences in brain activation in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have been found according to stimulus type (e.g., a wooden rod vs. a velvet cloth) (11) and subjective ratings of emotion (12,13).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the fact that SI is not activated by projections from unmyelinated CT afferents (10) does not preclude the possibility that SI processes pleasant interpersonal touch. Some interpersonal touches are pleasant without having the properties that activate CT afferents (2), and SI receives information from thick fibers that sense tactile properties (e.g., velocity, pressure) that could be processed to recognize a pleasant caress. However, none of these considerations yet demonstrate that SI encodes affective/social properties of touch, above and beyond sensory differences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Gazzola¹,

Spezio

Etzel³

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

269

208

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Another person's caress is one of the most powerful of all emotional social signals. How much the primary somatosensory cortices (SIs) participate in processing the pleasantness of such social touch remains unclear. Although ample empirical evidence supports the role of the insula in affective processing of touch, here we argue that SI might be more involved in affective processing than previously thought by showing that the response in SI to a sensual caress is modified by the perceived sex of the caresser. In a functional MRI study, we manipulated the perceived affective quality of a caress independently of the sensory properties at the skin: heterosexual males believed they were sensually caressed by either a man or woman, although the caress was in fact invariantly delivered by a female blind to condition type. Independent analyses showed that SI encoded, and was modulated by, the visual sex of the caress, and that this effect is unlikely to originate from the insula. This suggests that current models may underestimate the role played by SI in the affective processing of social touch.affective touch | sexual selection | gender | crossmodal perception | hot cognition

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Real or Ersatz? Determinants of Benefits and Costs of Online Social Interactions

Green

Clark

2015

The Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology

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The science of interpersonal touch: An overview

Cited by 648 publications

References 161 publications

Tactile motion lacks momentum

Tactile motion lacks momentum

Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Real or Ersatz? Determinants of Benefits and Costs of Online Social Interactions

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