We focus on social touch as a paradigmatic case of the
embodied, cognitive, and metacognitive processes involved in
social, affective regulation. Social touch appears to contribute
three interrelated but distinct functions to affective regulation.
First, it regulates affects by fulfilling embodied predictions
about social proximity and attachment. Second, caregiving
touch, such as warming an infant, regulates affect by socially
enacting homeostatic control and co-regulation of
physiological states. Third, affective touch such as gentle
stroking or tickling regulates affect by allostatic regulation of
the salience and epistemic gain of particular experiences in
given contexts and timescales. These three functions of
affective touch are most likely mediated, at least partly, by
different neurobiological processes, including convergent
hedonic, dopaminergic and analgesic, opioidergic pathways
for the attachment function, ‘calming’ autonomic and
endocrine pathways for the homeostatic function, while the
allostatic function may be mediated by oxytocin release and
related ‘salience’ neuromodulators and circuits
