Alpers, Georg W.

Ganz, Marvin

Gerdes, Antje B. M.

Hartmann, Lilly

Waßmuth, Tabea

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Keywords: Affektive Wissenschaft, Gesunde Probanden 
A helping hand? Effects of interpersonal touch on emotion processing  
Marvin Ganz, Lilly Hartmann, Tabea Waßmuth, Prof. Georg W. Alpers, PD. Dr. Antje B. M. Gerdes 
(Universität Mannheim) 
There exist many studies examining the effects of emotion processing in clinical and subclinical 
samples. While many would assume from personal experience that interpersonal touch can play a role 
in emotional processing and regulation, e.g. for support or consolation, only a limited amount of 
studies focused on the connection between interpersonal touch and emotion processing.The 
underlying mechanisms and the clinical relevance of the effects of interpersonal touch on emotion 
processing remain unclear. To gain better knowledge in this area of research, we conducted an 
experiment exposing one group (n= 21) to interpersonal touch of an unknown person and the other 
group (n = 20) to the mere presence of an unknown person while watching emotional pictures. After 
each picture participants rated their experienced valence and arousal caused by the picture. 
Additionally, we gathered data of galvanic skin response (GSR) and facial electromyography (EMG). 
Unexpectedly, findings suggest that touch leads to higher levels of corrugator muscle (EMG) activity 
for negative, neutral and positive pictures. Moderation analysis revealed that this effect is stronger for 
participants with higher social anxiety. According to these findings, it seems that interpersonal touch 
is not always an entirely positive and soothing experience, but it may have a stressing effect on some 
people. When confronted with emotional situations, interpersonal touch of an unknown person may 
enhance the negativity of the experience and hence worsen the emotion regulation of people. This 
may be an important practical implication for physical contact in health care systems, for example. 
 
Keywords: Affektive Wissenschaft, Gesunde Probanden 
Encoding and recognition of person identity during threat: A multinomial modeling approach 
Maximillian Frank¹, Sabine Schellhaas¹, Dr. Nina R. Arnold¹, Hernán González Cruz², Dr. Florian 
Bublatzky¹ (¹ Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, 
Germany, ² Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim)  
A threatening context facilitates perceptual processing, which in turn is suggested to support memory 
encoding and recollection of context information. For instance, better memory has been found for 
affective words which were encoded during threat compared to safety conditions. Based on this, we 
examined face identity learning as a function of verbally instructed threat or safety. In two studies, 
participants (N=64 and 76) completed two sessions, in which 96 face pictures (divided in four subsets 
A, B, C, and D) were presented. During the encoding session, faces from Set A, B and C were presented 
with different background colors each once for 1s or 6s (Study 1 or 2). To trigger aversive anticipations, 
Set A was shown with a specific color (e.g. blue) which was instructed to signal threat of receiving 
shocks. In contrast, Set B and Set C (e.g. yellow/green) were presented without further instructions, 
however, implying safety to the participants. During the second recognition session, all pictures (old 
Sets A, B, C and the new Set D) were presented intermixed and a source memory (blue/yellow/green 
background or new) task was performed. Individual parameter estimates of item (face identity) and 
source memory (threat or safety context) as well as guessing parameters were obtained via 
hierarchical multinomial processing tree modeling. Preliminary results show that the mere verbally 
instructed threat compared to safety context was rated as more unpleasant, arousing and threatening. 
Recognition performance for items as well as for sources, however, did not vary as a function of 
aversive anticipations. Hierarchical multinomial model based parameter estimates did not reveal 


A helping hand? Effects of interpersonal touch on emotion processing

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A helping hand? Effects of interpersonal touch on emotion processing

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