What role does sense perception (touch) play In our knowledge, social connections and behavior?

The Power of Touch - Maria Konnikova

• 1960's - Nicolae Ceaușescu came to power in Romainia
• 1966 - Decree 770
• By 1967 the birth rate rose 13% and the infant population nearly doubled.
• Thousands of kids neglected

"A...psychologist who is best known for his studies of socially deprived monkeys, Carlson...found familiar “the muteness, blank facial expressions, social withdrawal, and bizarre stereotypic movements of these infants.” These behaviors “bore a strong resemblance” to the types of reactions that Carlson had seen in socially deprived monkeys and chimpanzees"

"Even short bursts of touch—as little as fifteen minutes in the evening, in one of her studies—not only enhance growth and weight gain in children but also lead to emotional, physical, and cognitive improvements in adults. "

I belive touch is a determining factor in human's social behavior

Significance

• Future children
• Future of humanity
• Medicine

AOK

• Human science- reaserch and expiriments on people and how they behave based on touch
• Religious knowledge system - culture and religion can dictate appoprate touch

WOK

• Sense perseption - touch
• Intuition - touch and lack thereof can affect one's intuition of a situation
• Ethics - Romainia

Globally

• Different religions/ countries could have traditions or cultures in which touch is not normal
• My friend from Tialand

Personaly

• When I was in Spain I didn't have as much physical contact with other people (hugs)
• It made me a little depressed and not very social

Different views

"...in 1928, John B. Watson, one of the originators of the behaviorist school of psychology, urged parents to maintain a physical boundary between themselves and their children: “Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job on a difficult task.” Watson acknowledged that children must be bathed, clothed, and cared for, but he believed that excessive touching—that is, caressing—would create “mawkish” adults."

"Touch itself appears to stimulate our bodies to react in very specific ways. The right kind can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels, stimulate the hippocampus (an area of the brain that is central to memory), and drive the release of a host of hormones and neuropeptides that have been linked to positive and uplifting emotions." (Tiffany Field, head of Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine)

Agree

• Many scientific expiriments have shown that touch and the amount of touch humans recive can effect their social behavior
• Personal experience

Disagree

• How can touch be separated from emotion?
• How can the expiriments be conclusive that the results are ONLY caused by touch?

"And yet touch is rarely purely physical. Field’s more recent work has shown that the brain is very good at distinguishing an emotional touch from a similar, but non-emotional, one... A recent study shows that we can identify other people’s basic emotions based on how they touch us, even when they are separated from us by a curtain. And the emotions that are communicated by touch can go on to shape our behavior. "

I think that touch affect humans in many ways but it does so in combination with memory and emotion.

Konnikova, Maria. "The Power of Touch." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 04 Mar. 2015. Web. 02 Mar. 2016. .