The Effects of Social Touch on Prefrontal Cortex Activity, Physiological Activity and Emotion Recognition.

Abstract

Emotion recognition (ER) is key for human social relationships. ER allows individuals to infer thoughts and actions from other people and allows individuals to act appropriately. Human neuroimaging studies have identified key areas involved in ER that form part of the ‘social brain’ network. Similarly, social touch is important for human social relationships and can communicate emotions like facial expressions. Interestingly, there is a convergence of mechanisms underlying social touch and ER. This study aimed to investigate the effects of social touch on ER, prefrontal cortex activity and physiological activity using functional near infrared spectroscopy, physiological measures and psychophysics. Results show that there was no effect of touch on ER in terms of accuracy and prefrontal cortex activity. Social touch did affect psychological activity. Implications for future research suggest that a larger sample size, amongst other measures, should be put in place and made a priority. Full details of results and implications are discussed in the study.