ArticleNeuropsychologia2018
Reading the mind in the touch: Neurophysiological specificity in the communication of emotions by touch.
Article in Neuropsychologia, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 110 citations in OpenAlex.
- The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Opioid-blunted cortisol response to stress is associated with increased negative mood and wanting of social reward.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Integrating Bioenergetic Therapy Model with Neuropsychopharmacological Interventions in Long-standing Treatment-resistant Schizophrenia: Case Series and Review of Literature.Annals of neurosciences · 2026Article
- Vicarious Touch: A Potential Substitute for Social Touch During Touch Deprivation.European journal of social psychology · 2026Article
- Paving the way for social touch at a distance: Sonifying tactile interactions and their underlying emotions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The Next Frontier in Neuroprosthetics: Integration of Biomimetic Somatosensory Feedback.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Is cultural context the crucial touch? Neurophysiological and self-reported responses to affective touch in women in South Africa and the United Kingdom.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neural responses to social touch with different emotional valences: an fNIRS study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological evidence of motor contribution to vicarious affective touch.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- The meaning of touch: Relational and individual variables shape emotions and intentions associated with imagined social touch.European journal of social psychology · 2024Article
- Reliability and validity of a simplified touch experiences and attitudes questionnaire for Chinese college students.PloS one · 2024Article
- To touch or to be touched? comparing appraisal of vicarious execution and reception of interpersonal touch.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Social Touch: Its Mirror-like Responses and Implications in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases.NeuroSci · 2023Review
- I wanna hold your hand: Handholding is preferred over gentle stroking for emotion regulation.PloS one · 2023Article
- The Role of the Skin in Interoception: A Neglected Organ?Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2023Article
- Depression severity is associated with reduced pleasantness of observed social touch and fewer current intimate touch experiences.PloS one · 2023Article
- Altruistic acting caused by a touching hand: neural underpinnings of the Midas touch effect.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Article
- Affective regulation through touch: homeostatic and allostatic mechanisms.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2022Article
- Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Touch is central to interpersonal interactions. Touch conveys specific emotions about the touch provider, but it is not clear whether this is a purely socially learned function or whether it has neurophysiological specificity. In two experiments with healthy participants (N = 76 and 61) and one neuropsychological single case study, we investigated whether a type of touch characterised by peripheral and central neurophysiological specificity, namely the C tactile (CT) system, can communicate specific emotions and mental states. We examined the specificity of emotions elicited by touch delivered at CT-optimal (3cm/s) and CT-suboptimal (18cm/s) velocities (Experiment 1) at different body sites which contain (forearm) vs. do not contain (palm of the hand) CT fibres (Experiment 2). Blindfolded participants were touched without any contextual cues, and were asked to identify the touch provider's emotion and intention. Overall, CT-optimal touch (slow, gentle touch on the forearm) was significantly more likely than other types of touch to convey arousal, lust or desire. Affiliative emotions such as love and related intentions such as social support were instead reliably elicited by gentle touch, irrespective of CT-optimality, suggesting that other top-down factors contribute to these aspects of tactile social communication. To explore the neural basis of this communication, we also tested this paradigm in a stroke patient with right perisylvian damage, including the posterior insular cortex, which is considered as the primary cortical target of CT afferents, but excluding temporal cortex involvement that has been linked to more affiliative aspects of CT-optimal touch. His performance suggested an impairment in 'reading' emotions based on CT-optimal touch. Taken together, our results suggest that the CT system can add specificity to emotional and social communication, particularly with regards to feelings of desire and arousal. On the basis of these findings, we speculate that its primary functional role may be to enhance the 'sensual salience' of tactile interactions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.