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Synchrony of Caresses: Does Affective Touch Help Infants to Detect Body-Related Visual-Tactile Synchrony?

Letizia Della Longa1, Maria Laura Filippetti2, Danica Dragovic3

  • 1Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.

Frontiers in Psychology
|January 31, 2020
PubMed

Insights

Affective touch, specifically slow stroking with a brush, helps infants detect body-related visual-tactile synchrony. This finding suggests that optimal C-tactile touch is crucial for developing bodily self-awareness from an early age.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Sensory processing

Background:

  • Bodily self-awareness involves integrating multisensory and motor signals.
  • Early tactile experiences are crucial for self-other differentiation and body awareness.
  • Affective touch, mediated by C-tactile afferents, provides interoceptive and exteroceptive information.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of affective touch in infant body perception.
  • To examine how tactile stimulus velocity and source influence body awareness.
  • To determine if affective touch aids in detecting visuo-tactile synchrony.

Main Methods:

  • A preferential looking task was used with 5-month-old infants.
  • Infants viewed synchronous and asynchronous visuo-tactile stimuli.
  • Tactile stimuli varied in velocity (slow/CT-optimal vs. fast/CT-suboptimal) and source (hand vs. brush).

Main Results:

  • Infants preferred synchronous stimuli only when stroked with a brush at slow velocity (CT-optimal).
  • This preference suggests CT-optimal touch aids in detecting body-related visual-tactile synchrony.
  • The effect was independent of the touch source, highlighting the importance of touch quality.

Conclusions:

  • Affective touch, particularly CT-optimal touch, plays a critical role in the early development of bodily self-awareness.
  • Infants' ability to detect visuo-tactile synchrony is modulated by the affective quality of touch.
  • These findings align with adult studies, indicating a consistent role for affective touch in body perception across the lifespan.

Keywords:
affective touchbody awarenessinfancymultisensoryvisual preference

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