When interacting with a regular desktop computer, indirect devices such as a mouse or keyboard are used to control the computer. Results of the interaction are displayed on a monitor. Current operating systems are restricted to one pointing device. With the introduction of multi-touch, a new form of human computer interaction is introduced. Multi-touch combines display technology with sensors w...

Infants' experiences are defined by the presence of concurrent streams of perceptual information in social environments. Touch from caregivers is an especially pervasive feature of early development. Using three lab experiments and a corpus of naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions, we examined the relevance of touch in supporting infants' learning of structure in an altogether different mo...

Pain relief by touch has been studied for decades in pain neuroscience. Human perceptual studies revealed analgesic effects of segmental tactile stimulation, as compared to extrasegmental touch. However, the spatial organisation of touch-pain interactions within a single human dermatome has not been investigated yet. In 2 experiments we tested whether, how, and where within a dermatome touch mo...

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (ECRM) systems focus on a website as the interaction channel for creating a one-to-one relationship with customers via various “touch” options. The intention of such technologies is to affectively and cognitively impact on online customers’ intention to return to the website. To capture the influence of eCRM systems, we define a construct, Perceived T...

We investigated whether slower velocity of arm movement affects grip-force generation in conditions with the finger touch provided to the wrist of the target arm. Nine subjects performed the task of lifting and transporting an object at slow, intermediate, and fast velocities with a light finger touch from the contralateral arm and without it. There was an effect of velocity of arm movement on ...

Healing Touch is a complementary therapy that can be used as a nursing intervention for patients in critical care settings. Use of healing touch may facilitate positive patient outcomes. However, further research is needed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of healing touch in the critical care setting. The use of Healing Touch in critically ill patients is explored in this article.

A questionnaire surveying patients' experiences of and attitudes toward physical contact in psychotherapy was used to test and extend Gelb's (1982) identification of four factors associated with patients' positive and negative evaluations of touch in psychotherapy: (1) clarity regarding boundaries of therapy; (2) congruence of touch; (3) patient's perception of being in control of the physical ...

The nematode C. elegans senses head and nose touch using multiple classes of mechanoreceptor neurons that are electrically coupled through a network of gap junctions. Using in vivo neuroimaging, we have found that multidendritic nociceptors in the head respond to harsh touch throughout their receptive field but respond to gentle touch only at the tip of the nose. Whereas the harsh touch respons...