ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2020
Calming Effects of Touch in Human, Animal, and Robotic Interaction-Scientific State-of-the-Art and Technical Advances.
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 116 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of Acupressure on Sleep Quality Among Inpatients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nursing & health sciences · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review and multivariate meta-analysis of the physical and mental health benefits of touch interventions.Nature human behaviour · 2024Pooled it
- Widespread Pressure Delivered by a Weighted Blanket Reduces Chronic Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial.The journal of pain · 2022Trial
- Long-term metabolic and cardiovascular health benefits from romantic partner touch in older adults.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Navigating the discourse on the use of social robot Pepper: ethical and practical implications.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Why care resists coding: the moral limits of medical AI.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Touch-Based Partner Yoga for Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Men in a Community Wellness Setting: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Program Evaluation of "The Studio".JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Shared expectations of soft haptic feedback through imagined high-fives with robots and non-human animals at a science festival.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Affective touch and face recognition: effects on memory and metacognitive performance.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Tactile Preferences in Goats: Implications for Animal-Assisted Interventions.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Vicarious Touch: A Potential Substitute for Social Touch During Touch Deprivation.European journal of social psychology · 2026Article
- Transfer effects of animal-assisted therapy on socioemotional skills in adult inpatient rehabilitation after acquired brain injury: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2026Article
- Effect of stress ball use before cholecystectomy surgery on surgical fear, anxiety and comfort of patients: a randomized controlled trial.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Newly validated touch experiences and attitudes questionnaire in German (TEAQ-G) is linked to social functioning, mental health, and hormonal stress regulation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Feature Selection and Prediction of PediatricBioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Challenges of Implementing LLMs in Clinical Practice: Perspectives.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Three-Dimensional Posture Analysis-Based Modifications After Manual Therapy: A Preliminary Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Infectious touching: Has COVID-19 changed our perceptions of social touch? A neural and behavioural study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Extradyadic stress as a barrier to sexual activity in couples? A dyadic response surface analysis.Journal of social and personal relationships · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Small everyday gestures such as a tap on the shoulder can affect the way humans feel and act. Touch can have a calming effect and alter the way stress is handled, thereby promoting mental and physical health. Due to current technical advances and the growing role of intelligent robots in households and healthcare, recent research also addressed the potential of robotic touch for stress reduction. In addition, touch by non-human agents such as animals or inanimate objects may have a calming effect. This conceptual article will review a selection of the most relevant studies reporting the physiological, hormonal, neural, and subjective effects of touch on stress, arousal, and negative affect. Robotic systems capable of non-social touch will be assessed together with control strategies and sensor technologies. Parallels and differences of human-to-human touch and human-to-non-human touch will be discussed. We propose that, under appropriate conditions, touch can act as (social) signal for safety, even when the interaction partner is an animal or a machine. We will also outline potential directions for future research and clinical relevance. Thereby, this review can provide a foundation for further investigations into the beneficial contribution of touch by different agents to regulate negative affect and arousal in humans.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.