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Updated: Mar 24, 2026
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Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator TSPAS
Published on: July 30, 2020
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Gentle touch perception across the lifespan
Isac Sehlstedt1, Hanna Ignell1, Helena Backlund Wasling1
1Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg.
Psychology and Aging
|March 8, 2016
Summary
As people age, their perception of pleasant touch, specifically C-tactile (CT) stimulation, becomes more positive. This study found that older adults rate gentle touch as more pleasant, unlike intensity, which declines with age.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Sensory Science
Background:
- Pleasant touch, mediated by C-tactile (CT) afferents, offers health benefits like stress relief.
- Discriminative touch, signaled by A-beta afferents, declines with age, but affective touch perception across the lifespan is less understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between age and the pleasantness and intensity of gentle stroking touch.
- To compare age-related changes in touch perception with olfactory perception.
Main Methods:
- 120 participants (ages 13-82) rated pleasantness and intensity of CT-optimal and suboptimal stroking velocities.
- Olfactory stimuli were used as a cross-sensory comparison to assess age effects specificity.
Main Results:
- CT-optimal stimuli were rated as more pleasant than suboptimal stimuli across all ages.
- Touch and olfactory intensity ratings decreased with age.
- Pleasantness ratings for touch, but not olfactory stimuli, positively correlated with age.
Conclusions:
- Affective, but not discriminative, aspects of touch are enhanced with age.
- Increased pleasantness of touch in older adults may relate to cognitive modulations.
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