University College London, Research Department of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology, London, UK.
Royal Holloway, University of London, Department of Psychology, Egham, Surrey, UK.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 10;7(1):12883. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-13345-9.
Multisensory integration is a powerful mechanism for constructing body awareness and key for the sense of selfhood. Recent evidence has shown that the specialised C tactile modality that gives rise to feelings of pleasant, affective touch, can enhance the experience of body ownership during multisensory integration. Nevertheless, no study has examined whether affective touch can also modulate psychological identification with our face, the hallmark of our identity. The current study used the enfacement illusion paradigm to investigate the role of affective touch in the modulation of self-face recognition during multisensory integration. In the first experiment (N = 30), healthy participants were stroked on the cheek while they were looking at another face being stroked on the cheek in synchrony or asynchrony with affective (slow; CT-optimal) vs. neutral (fast; CT-suboptimal) touch. In the second experiment (N = 38) spatial incongruence of touch (cheek vs. forehead) was used as a control condition instead of temporal asynchrony. Overall, our data suggest that CT-optimal, affective touch enhances subjective (but not behavioural) self-face recognition during synchronous and spatially congruent integration of different sensations and possibly reduces deafference during asynchronous multisensory integration. We discuss the role of affective touch in shaping the more social aspects of our self.
多感觉整合是构建身体意识的强大机制，也是自我意识的关键。最近的证据表明，专门的 C 触觉模态会产生愉悦的触觉感受，它可以增强多感觉整合过程中对身体所有权的体验。然而，还没有研究检验是否愉悦的触觉也可以调节我们对面部的心理认同，这是我们身份的标志。当前的研究使用面部错觉范式来研究在多感觉整合过程中，愉悦的触觉在调节自我面孔识别中的作用。在第一个实验中（N=30），健康的参与者在脸颊上被抚摸时，同时或异步地观察到另一个脸颊被抚摸，分别是有愉悦（慢；CT 最佳）和中性（快；CT 次佳）触觉。在第二个实验中（N=38），使用触觉的空间不一致（脸颊对前额）作为控制条件，而不是时间异步。总的来说，我们的数据表明，在不同感觉的同步和空间一致的整合过程中，CT 最佳的愉悦触觉增强了主观（但不是行为）的自我面孔识别，并且可能在异步多感觉整合期间减少去传入。我们讨论了愉悦触觉在塑造我们自我的更社交方面的作用。
