Evaluation of person effect on pleasantness level from affective touch with EMG

'Affective touch' is a term which defines the stimulus that C-tactiles, found only on hairy skin, response to. C-tactiles are a sub-class of mammalian low-threshold-mechanoreseptors and unlike A-beta fibres which transmit discriminative properties of touch to somatosensory areas, C-tactiles transmit affective properties of touch to limbic system. CT-optimal stimulus is a soft touch which is approximately at 32 degrees heat, at 1-10 cm/sec velocity and it is consisted with the properties of interpersonal touch, e.g. between parents and infants. Affective touch plays a crucial role on surviving, parent-infant bonding, development of self, social development. In this study the person effect on the implementation of affective and non-affective touch to hairy and glabrous skin was investigated. It was studied if there is a difference between other person's touch and self-touch subjectively and objectively. Subjective evaluation was examined over visual analog scale (VAS) and objective evaluation over facial EMG and heart rate. Increased activity of zygomaticus major muscle is related with positive emotions and increased activity of corrugator supercilii muscle is related with negative ones. The findings indicate that affective touch is objectively found more pleasant compared non-affective touch and that other's touch is more pleasant compared to self-touch consistently with the literature. Touch at CT-optimal velocity elicits heart rate decelaration and increase of the activity of zygomaticus major. However VAS scores which is used for assesment of content did not revealed any significant result. The contribution of the study to the literature is that it objectively shows that the touch of someone else causes more content than self-touch.