Olfactory cues of naturally occurring systemic inflammation: A pilot study of seasonal allergy

Introduction: In an attempt to avoid contact with infectious individuals, humans likely respond to generalised rather than specific markers of disease. Humans may thus perceive a non-infectious individual as socially less attractive if they look (e.g., have facial discoloration), move (e.g., have a slower walking pace), or sound (e.g., sneeze) sick. This pilot study tested whether humans are averse to the body odour of non-infectious individuals with a low-grade systemic inflammation. Methods: We collected the axillary body odour of individuals with severe seasonal allergy (N = 14) and healthy controls (N = 10) during and outside the allergy season and measured serum levels of two inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-5). Independent participants (N = 67) then sampled and rated these odours on intensity and pleasantness. Results: While individuals with seasonal allergy had nominally more unpleasant and intense body odours during the allergy season - relative to outside of the allergy season and to healthy controls - these effects were not significant. When examining immune markers, the change in perceived pleasantness of an individual’s body odour (from out- to inside pollen season), was significantly related to the change in their interleukin-5 levels but not to tumor necrosis factor-α. Discussion: Our findings tentatively suggest that the human olfactory system could be sensitive to inflammation as present in a non-communicable condition. Larger replications are required to determine the role of olfaction in the perception of infectious and non-infectious (e.g., chronic diseases) conditions.publishedVersio

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Affective interpersonal touch in close relationships: a cross-cultural perspective

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch

Tactile disgust

Empirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 63-79.1. Introduction -- 2. Method -- 3. Data analysis approach -- 4. Results -- 5. Discussion -- References -- Appendices.Tactile objects are reported to be important elicitors of disgust. However, only two studies have assessed what makes objects disgusting to touch. The first found that softness and wetness were disgust eliciting, and the second that oily and sticky textures could also elicit disgust (Oum et al., 2011; Skolnick, 2013). As these studies manipulated only a few tactile qualities, the ability of other qualities to elicit disgust remains untested. Further, it is unclear if one’s belief about what the object is (and the disease-risk it poses) influences disgust. Thus, two questions remain unanswered about tactile disgust. First, what is the full range of tactile qualities which elicit disgust, and second, is tactile disgust influenced by belief of what the elicitor is, and the disease risk it poses? To answer these questions, 120 participants aged 17 to 42 were asked to feel a range of objects, which represented the major tactile qualities (i.e., sticky, hard, soft, oily, lumpy, viscous, wet, grainy, cold, warm), and rate how the objects felt (i.e., how sticky, hard, etc., it was), how the objects made them feel (i.e., disgust, fear and other emotions), and their disease risk belief (primarily how sick they thought the objects would make them). There were four groups, one could see the objects and the other three could not. To assess if participants’ belief about what they were touching influenced disgust, labelling was used on participants who could not see the objects. Objects were either disgust labelled, truly labelled or not labelled and participants reported what they thought they were touching. The results show sticky and wet textures are highly disgust eliciting, and viscosity, cold and lumpy also elicit disgust (but to a lesser extent). This suggests the adherence-quality of objects predicts disgust. Further, labelling had a significant impact, with the Disgust-Label group having the highest disgust and fear ratings, and belief the objects would make them sick. Fear and sickness belief were powerful predictors of tactile disgust and explained the increased disgust in the Disgust-Label group. The results argue for a comprehensive model oftactile disgust, which takes into account sensory-level features and disease-risk beliefs.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (vii, 83 pages) graphs, table

What's in a name? Role of verbal context in touch

Can a name (i.e. verbal context) change how we react to and perceive an object? This question has been addressed several times for chemosensory objects, but appears unanswered for touch. To address this, two studies were run. In each, we allocated participants to a Positive, Neutral or Negative Group, and asked them to touch the same four objects, twice—first, named by the experimenter according to their Group-name, and second, named by the participant. Participants were timed as they touched and rated the objects on pleasantness and disgust. Negative-named objects were touched for shorter durations, and rated more negatively, than neutral-named objects, and positive-named objects were touched for the longest and rated most positively. In the second presentation, most objects (greater than 90%) were named by participants in accordance with their assigned Group-names. The similarity of these findings to chemosensory verbal context effects and their mechanistic basis is discussed

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners

Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch

Supplementary Figures from Differential Involvement of the Senses in Disgust Memories.

Note. Pie charts on the left represent survey one responses (most memorable experiences) and pie charts on the right represent survey two responses (most common experiences). These pie charts were generated from sensory presence data – i.e., data on whether a sense (yes/no) was involved in a given experience. Proximal senses are in white, and distal senses in grey for visualization purposes