Hold me or stroke me? Individual differences in static and dynamic affective touch.

Autor: Ali SH; Institute of Population Health, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom., Makdani AD; Research Centre for Brain & Behaviour, School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom., Cordero MI; Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom., Paltoglou AE; Department of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom., Marshall AG; Institute of Life Course and Medicine Sciences, Pain Research Institute, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.; Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, United Kingdom., McFarquhar MJ; Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., McGlone FP; Institute of Population Health, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.; Research Centre for Brain & Behaviour, School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom., Walker SC; Research Centre for Brain & Behaviour, School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom., Trotter PD; Research Centre for Brain & Behaviour, School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2023 May 23; Vol. 18 (5), pp. e0281253. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 23 (Print Publication: 2023).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281253
Abstrakt: Low-threshold mechanosensory C-fibres, C-tactile afferents (CTs), respond optimally to sensations associated with a human caress. Additionally, CT-stimulation activates brain regions associated with processing affective states. This evidence has led to the social touch hypothesis, that CTs have a key role in encoding the affective properties of social touch. Thus, to date, the affective touch literature has focussed on gentle stroking touch. However, social touch interactions involve many touch types, including static, higher force touch such as hugging and holding. This study aimed to broaden our understanding of the social touch hypothesis by investigating relative preference for static vs dynamic touch and the influence of force on these preferences. Additionally, as recent literature has highlighted individual differences in CT-touch sensitivity, this study investigated the influence of affective touch experiences and attitudes, autistic traits, depressive symptomology and perceived stress on CT-touch sensitivity. Directly experienced, robotic touch responses were obtained through a lab-based study and vicarious touch responses through an online study where participants rated affective touch videos. Individual differences were determined by self-report questionnaire measures. In general, static touch was preferred over CT-non-optimal stroking touch, however, consistent with previous reports, CT-optimal stroking (velocity 1-10 cm/s) was rated most pleasant. However, static and CT-optimal vicarious touch were rated comparably for dorsal hand touch. For all velocities, 0.4N was preferred over 0.05N and 1.5N robotic touch. Participant dynamic touch quadratic terms were calculated for robotic and vicarious touch as a proxy CT-sensitivity measure. Attitudes to intimate touch significantly predict robotic and vicarious quadratic terms, as well as vicarious static dorsal hand touch ratings. Perceived stress negatively predicted robotic static touch ratings. This study has identified individual difference predictors of CT-touch sensitivity. Additionally, it has highlighted the context dependence of affective touch responses and the need to consider static, as well as dynamic affective touch.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2023 Ali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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