Vicarious Touch: A Potential Substitute for Social Touch During Touch Deprivation

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Social Neuroscience

Background:

• Social distancing measures, like those during COVID-19, negatively impact mental well-being by limiting interpersonal touch.
• Existing interventions to combat social touch deprivation are insufficient.
• Vicarious touch (observing touch) may offer a potential solution to mitigate these negative effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of prosocial, vicarious touch in reducing stress during a period of enforced physical distancing.
• To compare the stress-reducing effects of vicarious human-human touch, human-pet touch, and human-robot touch.

Main Methods:

• 1490 participants completed an online video-viewing task.
• Participants self-reported stress levels before and after viewing video clips of tactile interactions.
• The study design involved comparing stress reduction across different types of vicarious touch.

Main Results:

• Vicarious human-pet touch significantly reduced perceived stress, followed by human-human touch.
• Human-robot touch unexpectedly increased stress levels.
• The calming effect of vicarious touch varied based on individual anxiety levels and preferences for the video content.

Conclusions:

• Vicarious human-pet touch shows particular promise for stress reduction in situations lacking physical touch.
• Human-robot interactions may not replicate the emotional benefits of social touch and could potentially increase stress.
• Individual differences significantly moderate the impact of vicarious touch, suggesting personalized interventions may be beneficial.