title: Stroke me for longer this touch feels too short: The effect of pleasant touch on temporal perception.
abstract: Negative, painful, somatosensory stimulation lengthens the perceived duration of time. However, to date, no research has explored the influence of positive, pleasant, somatosensory stimulation on temporal perception. Here we asked whether gentle stroking touch influences perceptions of duration. Pleasant (gentle) and mildly unpleasant (rough) tactile stimulation was delivered whilst participants estimated the duration of a neutral visual stimulus. Pleasant touch resulted in shorter estimates of duration than unpleasant touch. There was no difference in duration perception in the unpleasant and control conditions. Taken together with the results of previous research (Ogden, Moore, Redfern, & McGlone, 2015), the results of this study suggest that pleasant and painful somatosensory stimulation have opposing effects on temporal perception, and additionally that pleasant touch can alter aspects of perceptual and attentional processing outside the purely affective domain.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Brain and Behaviour, Liverpool John Moores University, UK; School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Electronic address: r.s.ogden@ljmu.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ruth S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Ogden
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Brain and Behaviour, Liverpool John Moores University, UK; School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Redfern
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Brain and Behaviour, Liverpool John Moores University, UK; School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: McGlone
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D057181:Pleasure / Q000502:physiology*; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; CT-fibres; Self-representation; Time perception