Affective Touch Promotes a Healthy Sense of Self, Study Finds

Amy Taylor October 10, 2013

Affective touch, which has been previously correlated with pleasant emotion and reduced anxiety symptoms, may also promote and sustain a healthy sense of self, new research suggests.

The study, which was carried out by scientists at University College London and the University of Hertfordshire, showed that slow caresses or strokes such as those given by a mother to her child or between partners, instil a better understanding of the human body.

Researchers evaluated 52 healthy adults using a common experimental technique known as the “rubber hand illusion”. This technique makes the participants believe that a strategically placed rubber hand is their own. As they watch the “fake” hand being stroked or caressed in synchrony with their own, they begin to think that the fake hand belongs to them. The researchers used four different types of touch in the experiment – the synchronised, asynchronised, slow affective touch, and a faster neutral touch.

The test was done to investigate whether affective touch affects the brain’s understanding of the body and body ownership.

Affective touch promotes higher sense of self

The slow tactile stimulation of the rubber hand have made participants more likely to believe that it was their own hand compared with the faster, neutral touch. The researchers believe that the study provides new evidence to support the existing idea that internal signals, such as affective touch, play an important role in how the brain learns to construct a mental picture and understanding of the body, which in turn helps the body create a coherence sense of “self”. Reduced sensitivity to and awareness of the “internal signals” in the brain has been linked to a variety of behavioural disorders, such as body image problems, unexplained pain, anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology, also confirms previous findings that slow, light touch is perceived by the brain as more pleasant than fast touch.

“As affective touch is typically received from a loved one, these findings further highlight how close relationships involve behaviours that may play a crucial role in the construction of a sense of self,” said Laura Crucianelli, the lead researcher of the study.

In future studies, her team would like to know whether the deprivation of social signals, such as affective touch from parent during child development, may lead to abnormalities in the formation of a healthy body image and a healthy sense of self.

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Soft Caress Helps to Improve Sense of Self