• Exp Brain Res · Feb 2018

    Stroking and tapping the skin: behavioral and electrodermal effects.

    • Roberta Etzi, Carlotta Carta, and Alberto Gallace.
    • Department of Psychology and NeuroMi, Milan Center for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126, Milan, Italy. roberta.etzi@unimib.it.
    • Exp Brain Res. 2018 Feb 1; 236 (2): 453-461.

    AbstractBeing caressed represents one of the most typical expressions of affection conveyed by touch. Converging evidence suggests that the pleasant perception of gentle and slow stroking delivered to the hairy skin is mediated by C-Tactile afferents (CTs). While behavioral and neural responses to CT-optimal touch have been moderately explored so far, less is known about the autonomic reaction to different kinds of touch (both CT-optimal and not). Here, we investigated whether physiological arousal varies as a function of the specific tactile stimulation provided. Stroking (slow: 3 cm/s 'CT-optimal'; or fast: 30 cm/s) and tapping (random or fixed spatial order) stimulations were delivered to the participants' forearm with a brush, for durations of 9 or 60 s. Participants' skin conductance response (SCR) and level (SCL), as well as subjective evaluations, were recorded. The results revealed that being stroked (at both the velocities) induced higher SCR and SCL than being tapped. Moreover, while higher SCR was elicited by CT-suboptimal stroking compared to CT-optimal stroking, SCL was not affected differently by CT-optimal touch. No differences were found between the effects of 9 and 60 s stimulations. Slow stroking was evaluated as the most pleasant, relaxing and 'social' type of touch compared to the other tactile stimulations. Taken together, these findings shed light on the psychophysiological responses to stroking (including CT-optimal touch) and tapping, and contribute to elucidate the mechanisms underlying hedonic tactile perception.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…