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Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners

Interpersonal touch is of paramount importance in human social bonding and close relationships, allowing a unique channel for affect communication. So far the effect of touch on human physiology has been studied at an individual level. The present study aims at extending the study of affective touch...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chatel-Goldman, Jonas, Congedo, Marco, Jutten, Christian, Schwartz, Jean-Luc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24734009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00095
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author Chatel-Goldman, Jonas
Congedo, Marco
Jutten, Christian
Schwartz, Jean-Luc
author_facet Chatel-Goldman, Jonas
Congedo, Marco
Jutten, Christian
Schwartz, Jean-Luc
author_sort Chatel-Goldman, Jonas
collection PubMed
description Interpersonal touch is of paramount importance in human social bonding and close relationships, allowing a unique channel for affect communication. So far the effect of touch on human physiology has been studied at an individual level. The present study aims at extending the study of affective touch from isolated individuals to truly interacting dyads. We have designed an ecological paradigm where romantic partners interact only via touch and we manipulate their empathic states. Simultaneously, we collected their autonomic activity (skin conductance, pulse, respiration). Fourteen couples participated to the experiment. We found that interpersonal touch increased coupling of electrodermal activity between the interacting partners, regardless the intensity and valence of the emotion felt. In addition, physical touch induced strong and reliable changes in physiological states within individuals. These results support an instrumental role of interpersonal touch for affective support in close relationships. Furthermore, they suggest that touch alone allows the emergence of a somatovisceral resonance between interacting individuals, which in turn is likely to form the prerequisites for emotional contagion and empathy.
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spelling pubmed-39739222014-04-14 Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners Chatel-Goldman, Jonas Congedo, Marco Jutten, Christian Schwartz, Jean-Luc Front Behav Neurosci Neuroscience Interpersonal touch is of paramount importance in human social bonding and close relationships, allowing a unique channel for affect communication. So far the effect of touch on human physiology has been studied at an individual level. The present study aims at extending the study of affective touch from isolated individuals to truly interacting dyads. We have designed an ecological paradigm where romantic partners interact only via touch and we manipulate their empathic states. Simultaneously, we collected their autonomic activity (skin conductance, pulse, respiration). Fourteen couples participated to the experiment. We found that interpersonal touch increased coupling of electrodermal activity between the interacting partners, regardless the intensity and valence of the emotion felt. In addition, physical touch induced strong and reliable changes in physiological states within individuals. These results support an instrumental role of interpersonal touch for affective support in close relationships. Furthermore, they suggest that touch alone allows the emergence of a somatovisceral resonance between interacting individuals, which in turn is likely to form the prerequisites for emotional contagion and empathy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3973922/ /pubmed/24734009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00095 Text en Copyright © 2014 Chatel-Goldman, Congedo, Jutten and Schwartz. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Chatel-Goldman, Jonas
Congedo, Marco
Jutten, Christian
Schwartz, Jean-Luc
Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title_full Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title_fullStr Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title_full_unstemmed Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title_short Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
title_sort touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24734009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00095
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