Hugs and kisses – The role of motor preferences and emotional lateralization for hemispheric asymmetries in human social touch

2018 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 353-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Ocklenburg ◽  
Julian Packheiser ◽  
Judith Schmitz ◽  
Noemi Rook ◽  
Onur Güntürkün ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hemispheric Asymmetries ◽  
Social Touch

Hemispheric Asymmetries for Connecting and Predictive Inferences: The Role of Causal Constraint and Textual Familiarity

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Sundermeier ◽  
Sandra Virtue ◽  
Paul van den Broek ◽  
Chad J. Marsolek ◽  
Tracy Linderholm
Keyword(s):  
Hemispheric Asymmetries ◽  
Causal Constraint ◽  
Predictive Inferences

scholarly journals Brain-to-brain coupling during handholding is associated with pain reduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (11) ◽  
pp. E2528-E2537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Goldstein ◽  
Irit Weissman-Fogel ◽  
Guillaume Dumas ◽  
Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory
Keyword(s):  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Analysis Procedure ◽  
Empathic Accuracy ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Interpersonal Touch ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Post Hoc

The mechanisms underlying analgesia related to social touch are not clear. While recent research highlights the role of the empathy of the observer to pain relief in the target, the contribution of social interaction to analgesia is unknown. The current study examines brain-to-brain coupling during pain with interpersonal touch and tests the involvement of interbrain synchrony in pain alleviation. Romantic partners were assigned the roles of target (pain receiver) and observer (pain observer) under pain–no-pain and touch–no-touch conditions concurrent with EEG recording. Brain-to-brain coupling in alpha–mu band (8–12 Hz) was estimated by a three-step multilevel analysis procedure based on running window circular correlation coefficient and post hoc power of the findings was calculated using simulations. Our findings indicate that hand-holding during pain administration increases brain-to-brain coupling in a network that mainly involves the central regions of the pain target and the right hemisphere of the pain observer. Moreover, brain-to-brain coupling in this network was found to correlate with analgesia magnitude and observer’s empathic accuracy. These findings indicate that brain-to-brain coupling may be involved in touch-related analgesia.

scholarly journals Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (45) ◽  
pp. 13811-13816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juulia T. Suvilehto ◽  
Enrico Glerean ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar ◽  
Riitta Hari ◽  
Lauri Nummenmaa
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Relationship

Nonhuman primates use social touch for maintenance and reinforcement of social structures, yet the role of social touch in human bonding in different reproductive, affiliative, and kinship-based relationships remains unresolved. Here we reveal quantified, relationship-specific maps of bodily regions where social touch is allowed in a large cross-cultural dataset (N = 1,368 from Finland, France, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom). Participants were shown front and back silhouettes of human bodies with a word denoting one member of their social network. They were asked to color, on separate trials, the bodily regions where each individual in their social network would be allowed to touch them. Across all tested cultures, the total bodily area where touching was allowed was linearly dependent (mean r2 = 0.54) on the emotional bond with the toucher, but independent of when that person was last encountered. Close acquaintances and family members were touched for more reasons than less familiar individuals. The bodily area others are allowed to touch thus represented, in a parametric fashion, the strength of the relationship-specific emotional bond. We propose that the spatial patterns of human social touch reflect an important mechanism supporting the maintenance of social bonds.

scholarly journals Keepers as social companions: Tactile communication and social enrichment for captive apes

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3/4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Cerrone
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Konrad Lorenz ◽  
Tactile Communication ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Special Case

The article addresses the topic of great ape–keeper tactile communication. The aim of this paper is to understand whether direct physical contact can be considered a source of enrichment for captive apes and whether it could be used to enhance animal welfare in zoos. We make use of a multispecies perspective provided by umwelt theory in an attempt to determine the role of touch in zoological gardens. By referring to Konrad Lorenz, we describe keeper–animal relationships as a special case of companionship, highlighting the role of keepers in apes’ social behaviour. The paper considers social touch as the primary means used by social animals to create and maintain increasingly complex relationships. Since tactile communication in interspecific contexts has been underestimated previously, our theoretical framework allows for a better understanding of physical contact in zoological gardens without assuming an anthropocentric point of view. Our hypothesis is that physical contact with keepers may provide enriching opportunities for social animals and help strengthen the bond between animals and their keepers. We emphasize that ape–animal interactions in zoos need to involve keeper–animal physical contact as a possible means for enhancing the apes’ welfare.  

Affective judgement of social touch on a hand associated with hand embodiment

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 2408-2422
Author(s):  
Samira Fahey ◽  
Chavelyn Santana ◽  
Ryo Kitada ◽  
Zane Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Interpersonal Distance ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Affective Component ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Effect Experiment ◽  
Physical Sensation

Social touch constitutes a critical component of human interactions. A gentle tap on the hand, for instance, can sometimes create emotional bonding and reduce interpersonal distance in social interactions. Evidence of tactile empathy suggests that touch can be experienced through both physical sensation and observation, yet vicarious perception of observed touch on an object as a function of the object’s conceptual representation (e.g., Is this object identified as mine? Does this object feel like part of me?) remains less explored. Here we examined the affective judgement of social touch when the illusory sense of ownership over a dummy hand was manipulated through the rubber-hand illusion. When the same social touch was performed on either the real or the dummy hand, we found a similar sense of perceived pleasantness between the felt and observed touch, but only when the dummy hand was embodied; when it was not, the perceived pleasantness of the observed touch was lesser (an “embodiment effect”; Experiment 1). In addition, we found that the embodiment effect associated with the observed touch was insensitive to the way in which embodiment was manipulated (Experiment 2), and that this effect was specific to social but not neutral touch (Experiment 3). Taken together, our findings suggest a role of embodiment in the affective component of observed social touch and contribute to our understanding of tactile empathy for objects.

scholarly journals The role of empathy in the neural responses to observed human social touch

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 802-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leehe Peled-Avron ◽  
Einat Levy-Gigi ◽  
Gal Richter-Levin ◽  
Nachshon Korem ◽  
Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory
Keyword(s):  
Neural Responses ◽  
Social Touch

scholarly journals A thalamo-preoptic pathway promoting social touch

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Keller ◽  
Tamas Lang ◽  
Melinda Cservenak ◽  
Gina Puska ◽  
Janos Barna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Preoptic Area ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Neuronal Pathway ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Interactions ◽  
Stimulation Of

Social touch is an important form of communication, it is still unknown how it is processed. Here, we discovered a functional role for a neuronal pathway projecting from the posterior intralaminar thalamic nucleus (PIL) to the medial preoptic area (MPOA) in controlling social contact. Neurons in the PIL and the MPOA were activated by physical contact between female rodents and also by chemogenetic stimulation of PIL neurons. Chemogenetic stimulation of PIL neurons tagged by social contact experience increased direct physical interactions between familiar female rats without affecting other forms of social behavior. Furthermore, selective stimulation of the PIL-MPOA pathway, and the local activation of PIL terminals within the MPOA, elevated direct social contact between the animals suggesting the role of pathway-specific activated cell assemblies. Neurons projecting from the PIL to the MPOA contain the neuropeptide parathyroid hormone 2 (PTH2). The expression of the peptide was induced by social housing, the presence of PTH2 receptor was identified in MPOA neurons, and local injection of PTH2 increased the firing rate of identified preoptic area GABAergic neurons via the PTH2 receptor suggesting that PTH2 acts as a neurotransmitter in the PIL-MPOA pathway. We also found a homologous PIL to MPOA neuronal pathway in the human brain. Altogether, we discovered a direct thalamo-preoptic pathway, which bypasses the cerebral cortex and controls social touch. This pathway originates in neurons expressing PTH2, a neuropeptide recently shown in fish to respond to the social environment. These observations provide evidence for common evolutionary-conserved PTH2-containing social-touch specific engram circuits.

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