Affective touch communication in close adult relationships

Auteur-es

Sarah McIntyre, Athanasia Moungou, Rebecca Boehme, Peder M. Isager, Frances Lau, Ali Israr, Ellen A. Lumpkin, Freddy Abnousi, Håkan Olausson

Nombre Auteurs

9

Titre

Affective touch communication in close adult relationships

Année de publication

2019

Référence (APA)

McIntyre, S., Moungou, A., Boehme, R., Isager, P. M., Lau, F., Israr, A., Lumpkin, A., Abnousi, F., & Olausson, H. (2019). Affective touch communication in close adult relationships.

résumé

Inter-personal touch is a powerful aspect of social interaction that we expect to be particularly important for emotional communication. We studied the capacity of closely acquainted humans to signal the meaning of several word cues (e.g. gratitude, sadness) using touch sensation alone. Participants communicated all cues with above chance performance. We show that emotionally close people can accurately signal the meaning of different words through touch, and that performance is affected by the amount of contextual information available. Even with minimal context and feedback, both attention-getting and love were communicated surprisingly well. Neither the type of close relationship, nor self-reported comfort with touch significantly affected performance.

URL

https://research.facebook.com/file/1211280079277345/Affective-touch-communication-in-close-adult-relationships-.pdf

doi

https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC.2019.8816093

Accessibilité de l'article

Libre

Champ

AR/VR

Type contenu (théorique Applicative méthodologique)

Méthodologique

Méthode

The method involved recruiting 19 pairs of adult participants with a pre-existing relationship, assigning them roles as toucher and receiver, and having them perform a touch communication task with minimal context and feedback. The receivers then had to choose from a list of possible labels that best matched the touch they received. The study collected both open-ended responses and labels applied by three raters.

Cas d'usage

N/A

Objectifs de l'article

The objectives of the article were to investigate the accuracy of touch communication in close adult relationships, the effect of contextual cues on communication performance, and the potential for touch to be used as a primary means of communication.

Question(s) de recherche/Hypothèses/conclusion

The research question was whether closely acquainted humans can accurately signal the meaning of different words through touch, even with minimal context and feedback.

The hypothesis was that touch can be used as a primary means of communication in certain situations, and that small increases in contextual information can improve communication performance.

The conclusions were that touch communication is a viable means of emotional communication in close adult relationships, and that small increases in contextual information can significantly improve communication performance.

Cadre théorique/Auteur.es

The theoretical framework of the article is not explicitly stated, but the authors cite previous studies of touch communication and emotional processing by authors such as Tiffany Field, Matthew Hertenstein, and Antonio Damasio.

Concepts clés

Touch communication, Emotional communication, Contextual cues

Données collectées (type source)

The study collected data from 38 participants (19 pairs) who performed the touch communication task, resulting in a total of 114 labels applied by the three raters.

Définition des émotions

Non

Ampleur expérimentation (volume de comptes)

38 participants

Technologies associées

The technologies associated with the article are not explicitly stated, but the study likely involved some form of touch-sensitive device or apparatus for the touch communication task

Mention de l'éthique

Yes, the authors mention that participants provided informed consent, and the study was conducted in accordance with the regulations of the regional ethics committee who approved the study.