Recent
discussions in one of my psychology classes discussed the issues surrounding
the public display of affection (PDA), particularly that of same-sex couples.
Needless to say, most reactions toward it were that of uneasiness, discomfort,
and, to a more extreme level, disgust. But regardless of the sex of the people
involved in the incident of PDA, the action itself is generally viewed in a
negative light. Though being cuddly and loving in a public area may receive
reactions of the couple being sweet, couples who grope around and are more
torrid with each other get reactions that are typically along the “get-a-room”
variety. This literally touchy topic receives a lot of flak, being in the
public sphere and all, but there may be an underlying reason to their public
displays of affectionate behavior.
Acceptable vs. Unacceptable
A
2007 study published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology
presents support for the idea that there are two major classes of the sense of
touch. These are namely discriminative touch, which deals with interpreting
tactile information to be able to recognize objects and to feel sensations, and
emotional touch, which involves the affective component of pleasantness or
pleasure derived from the sense of touch. They relate findings of physiological
evidence that show there are different types of mechanoreceptors that respond
differently to certain stimuli, which are then transmitted to different nerve
fibers of varying properties.
There
have been more studies documenting the functions of the mechanoreceptors used
for (discriminative) touch, pain, temperature, and itch. Most of these
low-threshold mechanoreceptors are located in glabrous (hairless) skin areas,
such as the palm and the sole of the foot, and travel along heavily-myelinated
nerve fibers, called A-fibers (alpha/beta/delta), that are coated with a thick layer
of fat that facilitates impulse conduction. There are 4 types of these
mechanoreceptors, each of which are responsible for the perception of certain
sensations on the skin.
Not as
much attention has been devoted to the study of the affective component of
touch, which was found to have its own separate pathway for conducting tactile
sensations. The specialized CT system, which is found only in areas of the skin
with hair, respond best to slowly moving, low-force, mechanical stimuli. Signals
travel along unmyelinated C-tactile afferent (CT-afferent) fibers that provide
or support emotional, hormonal, and behavioral responses to skin-to-skin
contact with con-specifics. In addition, these fibers project into areas of the
brain that are associated with the affective aspects of feeling from the body,
such as well-being and rewards. In combining the input from both A-fibers and
CT-fibers received from the hair-covered areas of skin, a fuller sensation of
pleasantness derived from touch may be experienced.
Reading
this article explains, in a rather nerdy manner, why some people publicly have
their hands all over their significant other in places no one else will find.
Despite this strong evidence for the body having a system that for touch serving
an emotional need, like most behaviors, the acceptability of PDA is usually determined by
the context it is done in. Perhaps getting inspiration from the saying that
actions speak louder than words, gently caressing your significant other’s body, public or otherwise, can say so much more to the CT system than any cheesy line can ever manage.
McGlone, F., Vallbo, A.B., Olausson, H.,
Loken, L., Wessberg, J. (2007). Discriminative touch and emotional touch. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology,
61(3), 173-183.
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