Faculty of Health, Research Centre for Brain and Behaviour, School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Bundeswehr Universität, Munich, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Aug 14;13(1):13198. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-39484-w.
Interpersonal touch is intimately related to the emotional bond between the touch giver and the touch receiver. Which bodily regions we touch in those individuals in our social network is relationship specific. Perception of interpersonal touch is altered in psychiatric disorders characterised by body image disturbances (BIDs). Here, we examined whether the 'imagined' experience of social touch in individuals with BIDs is body topography- and relationship-specific. By using an interactive media mobile App, the Virtual Touch Toolkit, high versus low levels of BIDs participants completed heatmaps of full-body virtual avatars, to indicate the body regions they find soothing/unpleasant to be touched by a loved one versus an acquaintance. Self-reports of interoceptive awareness and dysmorphic concerns were also measured. Overall, imagined touch was rated as the most soothing when received from a loved one, and also when this was delivered to 'social' body regions. The importance of the social relationship for the imagined tactile interactions was particularly evident for the high levels of BIDs group, with greater problems with interoceptive awareness predicting higher soothing touch ratings when this was received by a loved one. Despite the evidence that imagined bodily contacts between meaningful people is the most pleasant for socially acceptable bodily regions, our findings may suggest a greater sensitivity to relation-specific bodily patterns of social touch particularly in the high level of BIDs group. Heightened interoceptive awareness may also play a key role in this experience of bodily affective contacts. Future research for body-oriented therapy for BIDs is encouraged to systematically probe the efficacy of imagined social touch interaction protocols which use more plausible, ecological, scenarios where touch is delivered by loved ones and to socially acceptable bodily regions.
人际触摸与触摸者和接受者之间的情感联系密切相关。我们在社交网络中触摸那些人的哪些身体部位是与关系相关的。在以身体意象障碍 (BIDs) 为特征的精神障碍中，人际触摸的感知会发生变化。在这里，我们研究了 BIDs 个体中“想象”的社会触摸体验是否具有身体拓扑和关系特异性。通过使用交互式媒体移动应用程序，即虚拟触摸工具包，高 BIDs 和低 BIDs 参与者完成了全身虚拟化身的热图，以指示他们认为被爱人或熟人触摸时感到舒适/不适的身体区域。还测量了内感受意识和畸形关注的自我报告。总体而言，当从爱人那里收到想象中的触摸时，感觉最舒适，当这种触摸传递到“社交”身体区域时，感觉也最舒适。对于高 BIDs 组，社会关系对想象中的触觉相互作用的重要性尤为明显，内感受意识越高，当从爱人那里收到时，感觉越舒适。尽管有证据表明，在有意义的人之间想象中的身体接触对于可接受的社交身体区域是最愉快的，但我们的发现可能表明，对于高 BIDs 组，对关系特异性身体模式的社会触摸更为敏感。更高的内感受意识也可能在这种身体情感接触体验中发挥关键作用。鼓励对 BIDs 进行以身体为导向的治疗的未来研究，以系统地探讨使用更合理、生态的想象社会触摸互动协议的效果，其中触摸由爱人传递并传递到可接受的社交身体区域。
