Characteristics of vicarious touch reports in a general population.

ABSTRACT: Vicarious touch broadly refers to sensory, neural, or affective responses to observing touch on another person. In this study, we focused on the conscious experience of these sensations. We collected vicarious touch reports from 422 undergraduate students who viewed videos from the validated touch-video database (VTD), a stimulus set systematically rated for hedonic qualities, arousal, and perceived threat levels. A surprisingly large majority (84%) of participants reported vicarious sensations such as touch, tingling, pressure, and pain, predominantly matched to the location of touch on the hands observed in the videos. Contrary to previous studies, we found that vicarious touch was more prevalent in women than men. Additionally, while earlier research suggested a correlation between vica

SUBMITTER: Smit S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12480766 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature