ArticleScientific reports2021
Heterosexual, gay, and lesbian people's reactivity to virtual caresses on their embodied avatars' taboo zones.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Visual perspective and body ownership modulate vicarious pain and touch: A systematic review.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Pooled it
- Surrogate bias: Behavioral and physiological effects of seeing ingroup and outgroup virtual agents touching one's embodied avatar.Computers in human behavior reports · 2026Article
- Autistic adults prefer social touch less but engage just as much: The impact of social context, relationship type, sensory responsivity, and psychological factors.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Centrality of Touch Avoidance in Social Touch Experiences in Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Taking an embodied avatar's perspective modulates the temporal dynamics of vicarious pain and pleasure: a virtual reality and EEG study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Temporal dynamics of full-body ownership and vicarious touch sensations as inferred from embodying a virtual avatar.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Probing corporeal awareness in women through virtual reality induction of embreathment illusion.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Virtually simulated interpersonal touch negatively affects perceived closeness and social affiliation to an avatar partner.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Embodied, visible, and courteous: exploring robotic social touch with virtual idols.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2024Article
- Greater interpersonal distance in adults with autism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2023Article
- Effects of appearance and gender on pre-touch proxemics in virtual reality.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Embodying the avatar of an omnipotent agent modulates the perception of one's own abilities and enhances feelings of invulnerability.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The analgesic power of pleasant touch in individuals with chronic pain: Recent findings and new insights.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Review
- Interpersonal Motor Interactions Shape Multisensory Representations of the Peripersonal Space.Brain sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Embodying an artificial agent through immersive virtual reality (IVR) may lead to feeling vicariously somatosensory stimuli on one's body which are in fact never delivered. To explore whether vicarious touch in IVR reflects the basic individual and social features of real-life interpersonal interactions we tested heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women reacting subjectively and physiologically to the observation of a gender-matched virtual body being touched on intimate taboo zones (like genitalia) by male and female avatars. All participants rated as most erogenous caresses on their embodied avatar taboo zones. Crucially, heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women rated as most erogenous taboo touches delivered by their opposite and same gender avatar, respectively. Skin conductance was maximal when taboo touches were delivered by female avatars. Our study shows that IVR may trigger realistic experiences and ultimately allow the direct exploration of sensitive societal and individual issues that can otherwise be explored only through imagination.
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