The communication of emotion via touch
Abstract
The study of emotional communication has focused predominantly on the facial and vocal channels but has ignored the tactile channel. Participants in the current study were allowed to touch an unacquainted partner on the whole body to communicate distinct emotions. Of interest was how accurately the person being touched decoded the intended emotions without seeing the tactile stimulation. The data indicated that anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, and sympathy were decoded at greater than chance levels, as well as happiness and sadness, 2 emotions that have not been shown to be communicated by touch to date. Moreover, fine-grained coding documented specific touch behaviors associated with different emotions. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to the study of emotion-related communication.
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Touch is an important way to communicate emotions to loved ones.
“Touch is also an important way to communicate emotions to loved ones (Hertenstein et al., 2009).”
From Biomimetic approaches to bionic touch through a peripheral nerve interface (2015) · cites this paper as Hertenstein et al., 2009
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- Authors
- Hertenstein, M. J., Holmes, R., McCullough, M., & Keltner, D.
- Affiliations
- DePauw University (US)
- ORCID
- Keltner, Dacher
- Venue
- Emotion
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 566-573
- ISSN
- 1528-3542 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-1516
- OpenAlex
- W2152966241
- Cited by
- 563
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 4.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- DePauw University
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Health, Education, and Physical Culture
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
- Keywords
- emotional communication, touch, tactile communication, emotion decoding, nonverbal communication, anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy, happiness, sadness, touch behavior
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Nonverbal Communication, Sex Factors, Touch, Intention, Young Adult
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