Social and Emotional Touch Between Romantic Partners is Affectively More Pleasant Due to Finely Tuned Contact Interactions

Our daily observations tell us that the delivery of social sentiments and emotions differs between strangers and romantic partners. This work explores how relationship status influences our delivery and perception of social touches and emotions, by evaluating the physics of contact interactions. In a study with human participants, strangers and romantically involved touchers delivered emotional messages to receivers’ forearms. Physical contact interactions were measured using a customized 3D tracking system. The results indicate that strangers and romantic receivers recognize emotional messages with similar accuracy, but with higher levels of valence and arousal between romantic partners. Further investigation into the contact interactions which underlie the higher levels of valence and arousal reveals that a toucher tunes their strategy with their romantic partner. For example, when stroking, romantic touchers use velocities preferential to C-tactile afferents, and maintain contact for longer durations with larger contact areas. Notwithstanding, while we show that relationship intimacy influences the deployment of touch strategies, such impact is relatively subtle compared to distinctions between gestures, emotional messages, and individual preferences.