Nonverbal behavior and attitudes toward touch

Semi-autonomous touch method merging robot's autonomous touch and user-operated touch for improving user experience in robot touch

The demand for therapeutic robots to alleviate mental health problems is growing. Studies have shown that people's mental health improves when they are touched. Consequently, therapeutic robots are designed to alleviate stress through robot's autonomous touch. However, robot's autonomous touch can sometimes cause discomfort to recipients. This paper proposes a semi-autonomous touch method that merges robot's autonomous touch with user-operated touch to mitigate discomfort while maintaining the sensation of being touched by another person. We conducted an experiment involving 24 participants who were touched on the neck by robots under three conditions: robot's autonomous touch, user-operated touch, and the proposed semi-autonomous touch method condition. Additionally, the study investigated participants' impressions of the robot in each condition. The results showed that semi-autonomous touch condition mitigated discomfort more effectively compared with the robot's autonomous touch method condition. It also enhanced the feeling of being touched by another person entity and suppressed interaction boredom compared with the user-operated touch method condition. Participants reported higher trustworthiness and perceived friendliness in robots utilizing the semi-autonomous touch method compared to those with autonomous touch method condition. These findings indicate that robots featuring the proposed semi-autonomous touch method can provide a comforting experience, leveraging the therapeutic benefits of being touched by another person, and underscore their potential in mental health applications.

Understanding sex differences in affective touch: Sensory pleasantness, social comfort, and precursive experiences

Although previous research revealed sex differences in affective touch, the implicated processes and the manner in which men and women differ have been left uncertain. Here we addressed this issue in two studies examining sensory pleasure, interpersonal comfort, and touch motivators. Study 1 comprised a series of lab-based experiments in which a robot stroked 214 participants (half female) at five different velocities modulating the activity of C-tactile afferents thought to support tactile pleasantness. Average pleasantness ratings followed velocity with the typical inverted u-shape similarly in both sexes. In Study 2, 260 participants (half female) completed an online survey. Here, women were more likely than men to express touch comfort with less familiar or unknown individuals, had a greater preference for touch with other women, and felt more comfortable giving and receiving touch to the forearm. Additionally, when describing how their own experiences might motivate others to touch them affectively, women produced more negative descriptions than men. Together, these results show that, while the sexes compare in a touch's sensory pleasantness, they differ in their preceding affective experiences and how they value touch at a higher-order social level. This agrees with extant research on negative affect and stress and suggests that affective touch may be a more relevant coping mechanism for women than for men.

Touch-Avoidance and Touch-Seeking in Non-intimate Relationships: The Null Effects of Sightedness

People differ in their touch preferences and in the ways in which they touch others. People who are blind are particularly sensitive to tactile stimulation as a result of sensory compensation, and sense of touch can support their interpersonal communication. In the article presented here, we aimed to explore whether visual status predicts preferences for touch behaviors involving strangers; specifically, we examined touch-seeking and touch-avoidance in non-intimate interpersonal situations. Our study, whose participants comprised 43 individuals with congenital blindness, 53 individuals with adventitious blindness, and 47 sighted controls, showed that visual status does not predict touch-seeking or social touch-avoidance. We also observed similar gender differences in all participating groups, with women avoiding social touch more than men in non-intimate interpersonal situations involving strangers.

Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching

Many species use touching for reinforcing social structures, and particularly, non-human primates use social grooming for managing their social networks. However, it is still unclear how social touch contributes to the maintenance and reinforcement of human social networks. Human studies in Western cultures suggest that the body locations where touch is allowed are associated with the strength of the emotional bond between the person touched and the toucher. However, it is unknown to what extent this relationship is culturally universal and generalizes to non-Western cultures. Here, we compared relationship-specific, bodily touch allowance maps across one Western (N = 386, UK) and one East Asian (N = 255, Japan) country. In both cultures, the strength of the emotional bond was linearly associated with permissible touch area. However, Western participants experienced social touching as more pleasurable than Asian participants. These results indicate a similarity of emotional bonding via social touch between East Asian and Western cultures.

Construction and Validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ): A Self-report Measure to Determine Attitudes Toward and Experiences of Positive Touch

Despite growing interest in the beneficial effects of positive touch experiences throughout our lives, and individual differences in how these experiences are perceived, there is not yet available a contemporary self-report measure of touch experiences and attitudes, for which the factor structure has been validated. This article describes four studies carried out during the construction and validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ). The original TEAQ, containing 117 items relating to positive touch experiences was systematically constructed. Principal component analysis reduced this measure to 57 items and identified six components relating to touch experiences during childhood and adult experiences relating to current intimate touch and touch with friends and family. Three attitudinal components were identified relating to attitude to intimate touch, touch with unfamiliar people, and self-care. The structure of this questionnaire was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis carried out on data obtained from a second sample. Good concurrent and predictive validity of the TEAQ compared to other physical touch measures currently available was identified. Known-group validity in terms of gender, marital status and age was determined, with expected group differences identified. This study demonstrates the TEAQ to have good face validity, internal consistency, construct validity in terms of discriminant validity, known-group validity and convergent validity, and criterion-related validity in terms of predictive validity and concurrent validity. We anticipate this questionnaire will be a valuable tool for the field of physical touch research.

Affective touch awareness in mental health and disease relates to autistic traits - An explorative neurophysiological investigation

Affective touch is important for social interaction within families and groups and there is evidence that unmyelinated C tactile fibers are involved in this process. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders show alterations in the perception and processing of affective touch. sThus, we hypothesized that affective touch awareness based on C tactile fiber activation is impaired in individuals with high levels of autistic trait. The pleasantness perception of optimal and suboptimal C tactile stimuli was tested in an explorative study in 70 patients recruited from an outpatient psychotherapy clinic and 69 healthy comparison subjects. All participants completed questionnaires about autistic traits, depressive symptomatology, childhood maltreatment, and about the daily amount of touch. Relative to comparison subjects, patients reported engaging in touch less frequently in daily life and rated touch less pleasant. Reduced valence ratings of touch were explained by childhood maltreatment but not by any particular disorder or depression severity. Among all tested variables, the affective touch awareness correlated with autistic traits only - in patients as well as in comparison subjects. Taken together, individuals with mental health issues have a lower baseline of expression and reception of affective touch. Autistic traits and childhood maltreatment modulate the experience of affective touch.

Parent-Child Positive Touch: Gender, Age, and Task Differences

This study examined gender, age, and task differences in positive touch and physical proximity during mother-child and father-child conversations. Sixty-five Spanish mothers and fathers and their 4- (M = 53.50 months, SD = 3.54) and 6-year-old (M = 77.07 months, SD = 3.94) children participated in this study. Positive touch was examined during a play-related storytelling task and a reminiscence task (conversation about past emotions). Fathers touched their children positively more frequently during the play-related storytelling task than did mothers. Both mothers and fathers were in closer proximity to their 6-year-olds than their 4-year-olds. Mothers and fathers touched their children positively more frequently when reminiscing than when playing. Finally, 6-year-olds remained closer to their parents than did 4-year-olds. Implications of these findings for future research on children's socioemotional development are discussed.

Some touching situations: the relationship between gender and contextual variables in cardiovascular responses to human touch

This study examined how cardiovascular reactivity to human touch is affected by the social context of the situation. Context for a ten-second touch was manipulated for 61 male and 64 female undergraduate participants in three ways: professional touch, were participants were touched on the wrist to have their pulse taken; social touch, an unexplained touch to the same area of the arm; and a no-touch control, where participants were told their pulse was being taken automatically without being touched. Social context was also manipulated by employing both same-sex and opposite-sex touch experimenters. In the professional touch and no-touch conditions, participants' heart rate and blood pressure decreased overall; however, in the social touch condition initial increases were observed for both measures. Female experimenters produced greater heart rate decreases than male experimenters. The greatest cardiovascular increases were found with women being touched by men in the social condition. These data suggest that both context and gender are important contextual factors in determining cardiovascular reactivity.

The right to touch and be touched

Touching is an integral part of human behaviour; from the moment of birth until they die, people need to be touched and to touch others. Touching is an intimate action that implies an invasion of the individual's personal, private space. In ethical terms, the question of touching is closely related to the patient's right to integrity and inviolability. The purpose of this study was to describe touching as it is experienced by elderly patients and nurses in long-term care. Touching was approached as a form of communication and as an important part of nursing practice. The participants, 25 patients and 30 nurses, were interviewed using a semistructured schedule. The data were analysed using the method of content analysis. The patients experienced touching by nurses as gentle, comforting and important. The nurses, for their part, experienced touching by patients as easy and natural. The patients rarely touched nurses more than was necessary. In some cases, nurses had to cope with violent touching by patients. Some women nurses interpreted touches by male patients as having a sexual nature and as annoying. This had taught male patients to avoid touching nurses. On the other hand, friendly and grateful touches by patients were very important to nurses. When used for emotional purposes only, touching presupposed a good relationship between nurses and their patients. Although touching is extremely common in nursing practice, there has been very little research into its meaning. More work is therefore needed to explore the role and meaning of touching in nursing.