Communication by Touch

Survey on Communication through Touch

Reading the mind in the touch: Neurophysiological specificity in the communication of emotions by touch

Touch is central to interpersonal interactions. Touch conveys specific emotions about the touch provider, but it is not clear whether this is a purely socially learned function or whether it has neurophysiological specificity. In two experiments with healthy participants (N = 76 and 61) and one neuropsychological single case study, we investigated whether a type of touch characterised by periph...

Communication by Touch Role of Cellular Extensions in Complex Animals

Neurons make networks of intercellular connections. Many other cells also send out long cellular extensions and "touch" other cells far away. The extensions are intriguing, but what do they do? Possible rationales for this cell behavior include: (1) forming precise binary connections with the possibility of forming more complex networks, and (2) coupling of signaling with physical force.

The ‘Keep In Touch’ Intergenerational Communication System

In this paper, we briefly describe the design and implementation of the “Keep in Touch” (KiT) intergenerational communications system. The KiT system is a communications appliance aimed to support low-overhead, easy to use inter-household messaging and conferencing between family members and close friends. We discuss the original audio-messaging implementation of KiT and extensions to photo mes...

The communication of emotion via touch.

The study of emotional communication has focused predominantly on the facial and vocal channels but has ignored the tactile channel. Participants in the current study were allowed to touch an unacquainted partner on the whole body to communicate distinct emotions. Of interest was how accurately the person being touched decoded the intended emotions without seeing the tactile stimulation. The da...