Absence Of Touch Research Articles

Neural underpinnings of the interplay between actual touch and action imagination in social contexts.

While there is established evidence supporting the involvement of the sense of touch in various actions, the neural underpinnings of touch and action interplay in a social context remain poorly understood. To prospectively investigate this phenomenon and offer further insights, we employed a combination of motor and sensory components by asking participants to imagine exerting force with the index finger while experiencing their own touch, the touch of one another individual, the touch of a surface, and no touch. Based on the assumption that the patterns of activation in the motor system are similar when action is imagined or actually performed, we proceeded to apply a single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation over the primary motor cortex (M1) while participants engaged in the act of imagination. Touch experience was associated with higher M1 excitability in the presence and in the absence of force production imagination, but only during force production imagination M1 excitability differed among the types of touch: both biological sources, the self-touch and the touch of one other individual, elicited a significant increase in motor system activity when compared to touching a non-living surface or in the absence of touch. A strong correlation between individual touch avoidance questionnaire values and facilitation in the motor system was present while touching another person, indicating a social aspect for touch in action. The present study unveils the motor system correlates when the sensory/motor components of touch are considered in social contexts.

Touch (Sk)Interrupted?

This article focuses on Dante or Die Theatre's socially distanced performance installation Skin Hunger (2021), an intimate one-on-one experience which explores the fundamental role that touch plays in our lives. The desire for contact is enduring in the social and sensorial imagination, particularly now during what Richard Kearney has termed the ‘pandemic eclipse of the tactile’. Elsewhere I have asked whether our tactile starvation will manifest in an increase of productions that satiate our need for touch? Or whether our anxieties over contact will predominate and result in an increased ‘sanitization’ of productions, a reduction in (sk)interactivity, and the proliferation of narratives which draw on our phobic responses? With this line of questioning in mind, this article will document my experience of Skin Hunger, as a ‘socially distanced spectator’, within this new framework of the socially distanced performance installation. It will consider the (skin)aesthetics used – the performers, for example, are swathed in plastic – to enable safe, intimate encounters between performers and the audience. It will also focus on the ways in which the absence of touch might increase the power of ‘the promise of touch [as] an explicit dramaturgical tool’ (Shearing 2015: 72). With reference to the health and safety documentation prepared by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in consultation with representatives of the performing arts sector, this article will ultimately suggest how 'statecraft,' or the visible COVID safety measures in place, might become a form of 'stagecraft' in relation to the development of new (skin)aesthetics and, more broadly, the enhancement of touch – or, rather, the absence and anticipation of touch – as a dramaturgical tool.

Touching to Feel: Brain Activity During In-Store Consumer Experience.

To gain a deeper understanding of consumers' brain responses during a real-time in-store exploration could help retailers to get much closer to costumers' experience. To our knowledge, this is the first time the specific role of touch has been investigated by means of a neuroscientific approach during consumer in-store experience within the field of sensory marketing. This study explores the presence of distinct cortical brain oscillations in consumers' brain while navigating a store that provides a high level of sensory arousal and being allowed or not to touch products. A 16-channel wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) was applied to 23 healthy participants (mean age = 24.57 years, SD = 3.54), with interest in cosmetics but naive about the store explored. Subjects were assigned to two experimental conditions based on the chance of touching or not touching the products. Cortical oscillations were explored by means of power spectral analysis of the following frequency bands: delta, theta, alpha, and beta. Results highlighted the presence of delta, theta, and beta bands within the frontal brain regions during both sensory conditions. The absence of touch was experienced as a lack of perception that needs cognitive control, as reflected by Delta and Theta band left activation, whereas a right increase of Beta band for touch condition was associated with sustained awareness on the sensory experience. Overall, EEG cortical oscillations' functional meaning could help highlight the neurophysiological implicit responses to tactile conditions and the importance of touch integration in consumers' experience.

A World of Touch in a No-Touch Pandemic

Touch is essential when living with dementia for communication and remaining connected with the world, and it is also unavoidable when performing body care. Thus, it is impossible to think of living and caring for people with dementia in the absence of touch. Drawing from my ethnographic fieldwork conducted with therapy animals and people living with dementia in Scottish care facilities, in this article I argue that the public health measures taken against the spread of COVID-19 infections need to be reimagined by taking into consideration the role of touch. Furthermore, I try to draw attention to the lessons that we should learn about touch and the role of intimate bodily entanglements in dementia care from the high COVID-19 death tolls amongst British care home residents.

Tactile information counteracts the attenuation of rubber hand illusion attributable to increased visuo-proprioceptive divergence.

Sense of body ownership is an immediate and distinct experience of one’s body as belonging to oneself. While it is well-recognized that ownership feelings emerge from the integration of visual and somatosensory signals, the principles upon which they are integrated are still intensely debated. Here, we used the rubber hand illusion (RHI) to examine how the interplay of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive signals is governed depending on their spatiotemporal properties. For this purpose, the RHI was elicited in different conditions varying with respect to the extent of visuo-proprioceptive divergence (i.e., the distance between the real and fake hands) and differing in terms of the availability and spatiotemporal complexity of tactile stimulation (none, simple, or complex). We expected that the attenuating effect of distance on illusion strength will be more pronounced in the absence of touch (when proprioception gains relatively higher importance) and absent in the presence of complex tactile signals. Additionally, we hypothesized that participants with greater proprioceptive acuity—assessed using an elbow joint position discrimination task—will be less susceptible to the illusion, but only under the conditions of limited tactile stimulation. In line with our prediction, RHI was attenuated at the farthest distance only when tactile information was absent or simplified, but the attenuation was effectively prevented by the use of complex tactile stimulation—in this case, RHI was comparably vivid at both distances. However, passive proprioceptive acuity was not related to RHI strength in either of the conditions. The results indicate that complex-structured tactile signals can override the influence of proprioceptive signals in body attribution processes. These findings extend our understanding of body ownership by showing that it is primarily determined by informative cues from the most relevant sensory domains, rather than mere accumulation of multisensory evidence.

Availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality does not enhance the full body illusion

The Full body illusion (FBI) is an illusion in which participants experience a change in self-location to a body that is perceived from a third-person perspective. The FBI is usually induced through experimenter generated stroking but can also be induced through self-generated stroking. In four experiments (three preregistered) we compared a self-generated stroking induction condition to a self-generated movement condition, where the only difference between conditions was the presence or absence of touch. We investigated whether the illusion reflects an all-or-nothing phenomenon or whether the illusion is influenced by the availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality. As a prerequisite, we investigated whether the FBI can also be induced using just self-generated movement in the absence of synchronous touch. Illusion strength was measured through illusion statements. Participants reported an equally strong illusion for both induction methods in Experiments 1, 2 and 3. In the third experiment, we additionally measured the time of illusion onset. Like the illusion strength measures, the illusion onset times did not differ between the two induction methods. In the fourth experiment participants only completed the self-generated movement condition. Again, they reported the FBI, demonstrating that the findings of Experiments 1, 2 and 3 were not dependent on the presence of a condition that used synchronous touch. Together, these findings confirm the hypothesis that the FBI is an all-or-nothing phenomenon and that adding additional multisensory synchronicity does not help to enhance the strength, onset time or onset probability of the illusion.

The value of being there: toward a science of immersive virtual field trips

With immersive experiences becoming a medium for mass communication, we need pedagogies as well as scientific, evidence-based design principles for immersive learning. To foster evidence-based designs of immersive learning, we detail an empirical evaluation of a geosciences field trip, common in undergraduate education across numerous disciplines. The study builds on a previously proposed research framework in which we detailed a basic taxonomy of virtual field trips distinguishing between basic, plus, and advanced immersive virtual field trip experiences. The experiment reported here expands the original evaluation of basic field trips into the realm of plus versions using pseudo-aerial $$360^{\circ }$$ imagery to provide embodied experiences that are not possible during the actual field trip. We also refined our original experimental design placing a stronger focus on the qualitative feedback elicited from the students. Results show an overwhelmingly positive response of students to virtual field trips with significantly higher-valued learning experience and enjoyment. Furthermore, the introduction of pseudo-aerial imagery (together with higher image resolution) shows a significant improvement in the participants spatial situation model. As contextualizing and spatially grounding is essential for place-based learning experiences, plus versions of virtual field trips have the potential to add value to the learning outcome and immersive virtual field trip experience. We discuss these encouraging results as well as critical feedback from the participants, such as the absence of touch in virtual experiences, and lay out our vision for the future of immersive learning experiences across environmental sciences.

Layer-specific integration of locomotion and sensory information in mouse barrel cortex

During navigation, rodents continually sample the environment with their whiskers. How locomotion modulates neuronal activity in somatosensory cortex, and how it is integrated with whisker-touch remains unclear. Here, we compared neuronal activity in layer 2/3 (L2/3) and L5 of barrel cortex using calcium imaging in mice running in a tactile virtual reality. Both layers increase their activity during running and concomitant whisking, in the absence of touch. Fewer neurons are modulated by whisking alone. Whereas L5 neurons respond transiently to wall-touch during running, L2/3 neurons show sustained activity. Consistently, neurons encoding running-with-touch are more abundant in L2/3 and they encode the run-speed better during touch. Few neurons across layers were also sensitive to abrupt perturbations of tactile flow during running. In summary, locomotion significantly enhances barrel cortex activity across layers with L5 neurons mainly reporting changes in touch conditions and L2/3 neurons continually integrating tactile stimuli with running.

Does need for touch matter in the context of apparel online shopping? - Compensatory role of online aesthetic and instrumental cues -

The purpose of this study is to examine the compensatory role of instrumental (e.g., product information) and aesthetic (e.g., website background) online cues presented within apparel websites where touch is unavailable. The moderating role of two need for touch (NFT) dimensions (i.e., autotelic and instrumental NFT) between online cues and consumer responses was also investigated. Results demonstrate that personal differences in autotelic and instrumental NFT moderate the relationship between online cues and affective responses. It was found that consumers high in autotelic NFT (i.e., who need to touch for fun) seek more instrumental cues to compensate for lack of touch when shopping apparel products online. Surprisingly, consumers high in instrumental NFT (i.e., who need to touch for product evaluation) use aesthetic as well as instrumental cues to supplement the absence of touch. In contrast, for the low NFT groups, only aesthetic online cues showed significant effects on consumer arousal. Further analysis shows that instrumental NFT is negatively related to purchase intention while autotelic NFT has a positive effect on purchase intention. This implies that need for hedonic-oriented touch is no longer a barrier for online apparel shopping. However, the instrumental NFT seems a significant obstacle for the adoption of online apparel purchasing.

Body ownership and the absence of touch: approaching the rubber hand inside and outside peri-hand space

It is widely accepted that the integration of visual and tactile information is a necessity to induce ownership over a rubber hand. This idea has recently been challenged by Ferri et al. (Proc R Soc B 280:1–7, 2013), as they found that sense of ownership was evident by mere expectation of touch. In our study, we aimed to further investigate this finding, by studying whether the mere potential for touch yields a sense of ownership similar in magnitude to that resulting from actually being touched. We conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, our set-up was the classical horizontal set-up (similar to Botvinick and Cohen, Nature 391:756, 1998). Sixty-three individuals were included and performed the classical conditions (synchronous, asynchronous), an approached but not touched (potential for touch), and a ‘visual only’ condition. In the second experiment, we controlled for differences between the current set-up and the vertical set-up used by Ferri et al. (Proc R Soc B 280:1–7, 2013). Fifteen individuals were included and performed a synchronous and various approaching conditions [i.e., vertical approach, horizontal approach, and a control approach (no hands)]. In our first experiment, we found that approaching the rubber hand neither induced a larger proprioceptive drift nor a stronger subjective sense of ownership than asynchronous stimulation did. Generally, our participants gained most sense of ownership in the synchronous condition, followed by the visual only condition. When using a vertical set-up (second experiment), we confirmed previous suggestions that tactile expectation was able to induce embodiment over a foreign hand, similar in magnitude to actual touch, but only when the real and rubber hand were aligned on the vertical axis, thus along the trajectory of the approaching stimulus. These results indicate that our brain uses bottom-up sensory information, as well as top-down predictions for building a representation of our body.

The Ethics of Representation: Punctum Language, Evental Photography, and Affective Scenography in Howard Barker’s Drama

Howard Barker (1946-) is a versatile artist. Not only is he a long-standing dramatist (more than 100 plays) and poet (6 volumes of published poetry since 1985), he is also a professional painter and photographer. Significantly, Barker has also come to assume increasing responsibility for the production of his own plays as director and dramaturg (including sound and costume design). This multi-mediality and poetic style is vividly reflected not only in Barker’s language (intensely musical and densely poetic: in its phrasing, imagery, rhythm and metaphor) but also in his highly elaborate audial-visual aesthetics of production. Accordingly, this essay seeks to demonstrate how the thematic content of a scene (given Barker’s tragic values – eventual ethics of speculation self-overcoming, proximal relationship with the other, obscurity, irrationality, desire, pain, anxiety, and death) and its mode of aesthetic presentation/figuration (language, textual composition and dramatic/scenographic dynamics) are inextricably entangled. This essay seeks to explore the aesthetic and ethical aspects of language/text, image/photography and scenography by dwelling on two paradigmatic scenes in The Europeans and Judith in conjunction with an investigation of the eventual-cinematic role/nature of image/photograph in Barker. Tackling the foregoing issues, particularly given the affective-thematic complexity and manifold dynamics of the selected scenes (two traumatized individual characters, spiritual-carnal proximity between them, carnal light, nakedness haptic gaze, and absence of touch), demands an equally nuanced and multifaceted theoretical framework capable of unraveling their aesthetic and ethical facets. For this purpose I have drawn here on Barthes, Levinas, Lyotard and Deleuze in an attempt to reveal the way various aesthetic, ontological and ethical layers are interlaced and to demonstrate their implications.

Tune to touch: Affective touch enhances learning of face identity in 4-month-old infants

Touch provides more than sensory input for discrimination of what is on the skin. From early in development it has a rewarding and motivational value, which may reflect an evolutionary mechanism that promotes learning and affiliative bonding. In the present study we investigated whether affective touch helps infants tune to social signals, such as faces. Four-month-old infants were habituated to an individual face with averted gaze, which typically does not engage infants to the same extent as direct gaze does. As in a previous study, in the absence of touch, infants did not learn the identity of this face. Critically, 4-month-old infants did learn to discriminate this face when parents provided gentle stroking, but they did not when they experienced a non-social tactile stimulation. A preliminary follow-up eye-tracking study (Supplementary material) revealed no significant difference in the visual scanning of faces between touch and no-touch conditions, suggesting that affective touch may not affect the distribution of visual attention, but that it may promote more efficient learning of facial information.

Friendly touch increases gratitude by inducing communal feelings.

Communion among people is easily identifiable. Close friends or relatives frequently touch each other and this physical contact helps identifying the type of relationship they have. We tested whether a friendly touch and benefits elicit the emotion of gratitude given the close link between gratitude and communal relations. In Study 1, we induced a communal mindset and manipulated friendly touch (vs. non-touch) and benefit to female participants by a female confederate. We measured pre- and post-benefit gratitude, communal feelings, and liking toward the toucher, as well as general affect. In Study 2, we manipulated mindset, friendly touch and benefit, and measured the same variables in female pairs (confederate and participants). In both studies the results showed a main effect of touch on pre-benefit gratitude: participants who were touched by the confederate indicated more gratitude than those not touched. Moreover, benefit increased gratitude toward a confederate in the absence of touch, but not in the presence of touch. Additionally, perceiving the relationship as communal, and not merely liking the confederate, or a positive mood mediated the link between touch and gratitude. The results further support a causal model where touch increases communal feelings, which in turn increase gratitude at the end of the interaction, after having received a benefit from the interaction partner. These results support a broader definition of gratitude as an emotion embodied in communal relationship cues.

Evaluation of smile esthetics by photographic assessment of the dento-labio-gingival complex

Context: The esthetics of a smile is determined by various factors including symmetry, anatomy and position of teeth, periodontal visibility, and musculoskeletal relationships. Aim: This study analyzed the dento-labio-gingival esthetic components of the smile, evaluating: (a) Amount of gingiva visible during natural smile and forced smile, (b) relationship between incisal edges of maxillary anterior teeth and upper border of lower lip, (c) deviation of dental midline from facial midline to right or left side. Materials and Methods: Photographs of 127 subjects were taken by standardizing by placing patients head in Frankfurt horizontal plane and photos were cropped uniformly. Analysis of the dento-labial-gingival esthetic components of the smile, evaluating the relationship between the curve formed by the incisal edges of anterior teeth that is, incisal line and the curve of the lower lip, whether the incisal line touches the lower lip, presence of overlap of the lower lip over the incisal edges or absence of touch and also the amount of periodontal visibility during natural smile and the forced smile was done using Microsoft PowerPoint. Result: During natural smile the most frequent smile line was class 4 that is, low smile line seen in 67% of participants and class 3 for forced smile that is, average smile line seen in 44% of participants. There was a highly significant prevalence for females to have more periodontal visibility during both natural and forced smile ( P P > 0.05). 78 % of subjects showed no deviation from the midline, 19.7 % of the subjects showed the deviation of midline toward the right, and 2.4% showed deviation toward the left. Conclusion: Harmony of the dento-labial-gingival complex is essential for a pleasing smile. Evaluating the smile of each patient using photographs, as well as radiographs and clinical data assures the clinician of the possibility of deciding what needs to be carried out and what can be done to treat a gummy or an assymetrical smile according to its etiology.

‘Er gab mir, was äußerst ungewöhnlich war, zum Abschied die Hand’: Touch and tact in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten and Austerlitz

This essay explores the theme and representation of touch in Austerlitz ( A) and Die Ausgewanderten/ The Emigrants ( DA/TE) and argues that the absence of touch and an excess of touch are both shown to be threatening, if not deadly. So touch must be mediated, and the complex interplay of distance and proximity characteristic of touch is encapsulated in the notion of tact. Sebald’s texts explore tact in three ways: in allusions to particular objects, particularly gloves and dust; in the visual evocation of touch in photographs; and in the mode of narration itself. Nevertheless, the careful negotiation between the ‘too much’ and the ‘too little’ of touch tips easily into an aesthetics of reticence that both facilitates and disguises the privileging of a melancholic sensibility over the untouchable body of the woman. The obscene, untouchable body is exemplified by Gwendolyn Elias, and the seductive, untouchable body by the erotic mother and female lover.

A clinician's response to physical touch in the psychoanalytic setting

The effects of physical touch, such as a handshake, a brief hug, or holding hands during a session, are reconsidered within a context of relevant theory and research. A brief exploration of the psychoanalytic view of the body differentiates between the abstract body of theory and the very real bodies that enter our consulting rooms. The significance of skin and touch is examined from a developmental perspective, clarifying the desperate consequences of the absence of touch in early life as manifest in our adult patients. The traditional use of exclusively verbal approaches is reconsidered for those patients or those points in treatment in which repressed material in verbal form is either unavailable or nonexistent. A long-term case is presented in which, after a period of abstinence, a decision to resume holding hands was mutually arrived at between patient and therapist.

HEART RATE, TcP02 AND TACTILE STIMULI PRECEDING BRADY CARDIA IN PRETERM INFANTS

Attempting to identify predictive antecedents to bradycardia in preterm infants, we analyzed 6500 minutes of heart rate and transcutaneous oxygen patterns of 9 infants who had bradycardic episodes during continuous computerized observations. Sixteen measures of heart rate and TcPO2 recorded 5 minutes before a bradycardic episode were compared with baseline values of these variables for the day when each bradycardia occurred. There were 50 episodes of bradycardia isolated by more than 5 minutes from any prior episode. Infants were handled 5 minutes before bradycardia in 29 of the 50 instances. Over the 5 minutes before bradycardia, the mean of the minimum TcPO2's, the absolute minimum TcPO2 and the mean of the TcPO2's were all lower than baseline 24 of 29 times when touch preceded bradycardia (p <.01). However, when no caregiver touch occurred prior to bradycardia, these same 3 TcPO2 variables were recorded higher than baseline for the 5-minute pre-bradycardic period. In the absence of touch, the mean heart rate as well as the maximum variability in high - low heart rates were lower than baseline 14 of 21 times during the pre-bradycardic period. These results generate the hypothesis that preterm infants who are handled when TcPO2 is low are very prone to subsequent bradycardia. Bradycardia following handling appears to have a different and potentially more preventable causative mechanism from spontaneously occurring episodes.