Researchers from the University College London believe they have discovered the hidden reason why affectionately touching someone’s skin always feels so soft — and good!
How many times can you recall touching another person’s skin and thinking to yourself, “their skin is so soft!”
Well a series of studies from researchers at the University College London suggest that the phenomenon is effectively a trick by the mind meant to facilitate social bonding through touch.
“The illusion reveals a largely automatic and unconscious mechanism by which 'giving pleasure is receiving pleasure' in the touch domain," said Aikaterini Fotopoulou, co-author of the recently published report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.
According to the report, study participants consistently rated the skin of another person as being softer than their own, whether or not it really was softer.
"What is intriguing about the illusion is its specificity,” said co-author Antje Gentsch, also of the University College London. "We found the illusion to be strongest when the stroking was applied intentionally and according to the optimal properties of the specialized system in the skin for receiving affective touch."
This “specialized system” typically responds to slow, gentle stroking found in intimate relationships and encodes the pleasure of touch, Gentsch explained.
The research adds to a mound of support for the powerful role touch plays in human life, from infancy to old age, with known beneficial effects on physical and mental health. For instance, premature infants benefit greatly from time spent in direct physical contact with their mothers.
Yet remarkably, little is known about the psychological benefits of actively touching others, Fotopoulou and her colleagues said.
So why, evolutionarily speaking, do we touch each other?
Supported by earlier studies that showed softness and smoothness to stimulate parts of the brain associated with emotion and reward, researchers suggest the illusion of other people feeling softer is a type of incentive to promote social bonding.
According to the report, this rewarding illusion acts as a kind of "social glue," bonding people to each other. For example, touching a baby in a gentle manner seems to give the mother tactile pleasure over and above any other thoughts or feelings the mother may have in the moment, the researchers observed.
Fotopoulou said the next step is to examine the neurophysiological mechanisms involved in giving affective touch and to examine any differences that may exist in the experience of this softness illusion among partners, friends, and strangers.
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