Emotion regulation via maternal touch

The study of emotion elicitation in the caregiver–infant dyad has focused almost ex-clusively on the facial and vocal channels, whereas little attention has been given to the contribution of the tactile channel. This study was undertaken to investigate the ef-fects of touch on infants ’ emotions. During the time that objects were presented to the dyad, mothers provided tactile stimulation to their 12-month-old infants by either (a) tensing their fingers around the infants ’ abdomen while abruptly inhaling, (b) relax-ing their grip around the infants ’ abdomen, or (c) not providing additional tactile stim-ulation (control condition). The results revealed that infants in the first condition (a) touched the objects less and waited longer to touch the objects while displaying more negative emotional displays compared to infants in the control condition. However, no apparent differences were found between infants in the second condition (b) and the control condition. The results suggest that infants ’ emotions may be elicited by specific parameters of touch. Touch has been described as the most fundamental means of contact with the world (Barnett, 1972) and the simplest and most straightforward of all sensory systems (Geldard, 1960). An extensive body of research has been conducted on the impor-tance of touch and infant massage for sensory, cognitive, neurological, and physi-cal development, as well as for pain management and arousal regulation (e.g., Field, 1998). However, the specific role of touch in eliciting and communicating emotions remains largely unexplored (Hertenstein, in press). In this article we pres-ent the results of an initial study investigating the processes by which touch elicits and regulates emotion in infants. The lack of investigation on touch and its relation to emotion is surprising. Touch may be an extraordinarily powerful sensory system for eliciting emotion. The skin contains receptors that directly elicit hedonic values, either becaus