The self-regulatory affective touch: a speculative framework for the development of executive functioning

Farroni, Teresa; Longa, Letizia Della; Valori, Irene

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.10.007

Cited by 18 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…These sensory-motor interactions occur well before the infant is born to interact with the outside world. The experience of pleasantness from affective touch has been linked with improved autonomic regulation in newborn humans and animals ( Morrison, 2016 ; van Puyvelde et al, 2019 ; Farroni et al, 2022 ), as young children need to be touched and swaddled to co-regulate their emotional worlds. While breastfeeding duration has been associated with improved cognitive development in children even when controlling for socioeconomic position ( Pereyra-Elías et al, 2022 ), the degree that somatosensory input coupled with oxytocin release plays a role is indeterminate yet intriguing.…”

Section: Multisensory Integration: Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Devel...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While breastfeeding duration has been associated with improved cognitive development in children even when controlling for socioeconomic position ( Pereyra-Elías et al, 2022 ), the degree that somatosensory input coupled with oxytocin release plays a role is indeterminate yet intriguing. Lastly, affective tactile interactions create a perceptual and physical boundary between self and other within the first months of extrauterine life and beyond ( Farroni et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Multisensory Integration: Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Devel...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The brain-body disconnect: A somatic sensory basis for trauma-related disorders

Kearney

Lanius

2022

Front. Neurosci.

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Although the manifestation of trauma in the body is a phenomenon well-endorsed by clinicians and traumatized individuals, the neurobiological underpinnings of this manifestation remain unclear. The notion of somatic sensory processing, which encompasses vestibular and somatosensory processing and relates to the sensory systems concerned with how the physical body exists in and relates to physical space, is introduced as a major contributor to overall regulatory, social-emotional, and self-referential functioning. From a phylogenetically and ontogenetically informed perspective, trauma-related symptomology is conceptualized to be grounded in brainstem-level somatic sensory processing dysfunction and its cascading influences on physiological arousal modulation, affect regulation, and higher-order capacities. Lastly, we introduce a novel hierarchical model bridging somatic sensory processes with limbic and neocortical mechanisms regulating an individual’s emotional experience and sense of a relational, agentive self. This model provides a working framework for the neurobiologically informed assessment and treatment of trauma-related conditions from a somatic sensory processing perspective.

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Section: Multisensory Integration: Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Devel...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Multisensory Integration: Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Devel...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The brain-body disconnect: A somatic sensory basis for trauma-related disorders

Kearney

Lanius

2022

Front. Neurosci.

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“…In this respect, developmental studies offer an important understanding on the crucial role of interpersonal affective touch in modulating stress reactivity, creating social bonds and shaping the development of socio-emotional and communicative skills ( Cascio et al, 2019 ). Since the very first stages of life, affective touch is a core self-regulatory and social component of early parent-infant interactions, with the potential of regulate infants’ emotional and physiological state ( Stack and Muir, 1992 ; Feldman et al, 2010 ; Della Longa et al, 2021b ), reinforce social behaviors (e.g., smiling and mutual gaze; Peláez-Nogueras et al, 1997 ) and facilitate learning of facial information ( Della Longa et al, 2019 , 2021a ), suggesting that early tactile experiences represent the scaffolding of the sense of bodily self and of social connections with others, through which the social brain develops ( Montirosso and McGlone, 2020 ; Farroni et al, 2022 ). Therefore, it is possible to speculate that including affective touch into intervention programs could have a soothing function particularly in the context of perceived social isolation, buffering the negative effects of loneliness.…”

Section: Social Connection Through Tactile Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpersonal Affective Touch in a Virtual World: Feeling the Social Presence of Others to Overcome Loneliness

2022

Self Cite

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Humans are by nature social beings tuned to communicate and interact from the very beginning of their lives. The sense of touch represents the most direct and intimate channel of communication and a powerful means of connection between the self and the others. In our digital age, the development and diffusion of internet-based technologies and virtual environments offer new opportunities of communication overcoming physical distance. It however, happens that social interactions are often mediated, and the tactile aspects of communication are overlooked, thus diminishing the feeling of social presence, which may contribute to an increased sense of social disconnection and loneliness. The current manuscript aims to review the extant literature about the socio-affective dimension of touch and current advancements in interactive virtual environments in order to provide a new perspective on multisensory virtual communication. Specifically, we suggest that interpersonal affective touch might critically impact virtual social exchanges, promoting a sense of co-presence and social connection between individuals, possibly overcoming feelings of sensory loneliness. This topic of investigation will be of crucial relevance from a theoretical perspective aiming to understand how we integrate multisensory signals in processing and making sense of interpersonal exchanges, this is important in both typical and atypical populations. Moreover, it will pave the way to promising applications by exploring the possibility to use technical innovations to communicate more interactively in the case of people who suffer from social isolation and disconnection from others.

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“…Being capable of self-regulation and flexibility indeed helps to better accept everyday situations, with repercussions on learning and adaptive behavior [ 53 , 54 ]. Moreover, executive processes are closely linked to socio-affective ones [ 55 ], thus benefiting from being trained in social situations.…”

Section: A Stairway To Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multimedia Interventions for Neurodiversity: Leveraging Insights from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience to Build an Innovative Practice

2022

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Multimedia technologies and virtual reality offer unique possibilities to manipulate sensory, motor, interpersonal, and cognitive processes contributing to atypical developmental trajectories, thus holding an explosive potential to design innovative and engaging interventions. However, there has been little progress in developing interventions that go beyond the patient’s diagnosis or the fascination of technology and rather spring from a deep understanding of the specific neuropsychological processes to be nurtured in individuals. This perspective paper outlines how recent insights from developmental cognitive neuroscience can be leveraged to promote children’s multidimensional development and highlight future directions and challenges for innovating both research and clinical practice. Finally, we focus on some practical examples of multimedia and virtual reality activities we have designed to stimulate bodily-self experiences, which are crucial for building up a coherent sense of self and lay the foundation for interacting with the external world. Atypical bodily self is an early marker of heterogeneous neurodevelopmental conditions (such as autism spectrum disorders) and seems to be under-targeted in research and clinical approaches.

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The self-regulatory affective touch: a speculative framework for the development of executive functioning

Cited by 18 publications

References 64 publications

The brain-body disconnect: A somatic sensory basis for trauma-related disorders

The brain-body disconnect: A somatic sensory basis for trauma-related disorders

Interpersonal Affective Touch in a Virtual World: Feeling the Social Presence of Others to Overcome Loneliness

Multimedia Interventions for Neurodiversity: Leveraging Insights from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience to Build an Innovative Practice

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