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Haptic communication refers to the ways in which people and other animals communicate and interact via the sense of touch. As well as providing information about surfaces and textures, touch, or the haptic sense, is a component of communication in interpersonal relationships that is nonverbal and nonvisual. Touch is extremely important for humans and is vital in conveying physical intimacy. Touch can be categorized in terms of meaning as positive, playful, control, ritualistic, task-related or unintentional. It can be both sexual (kissing is one such example that is sometimes sexual) and platonic (such as hugging or tickling). Touch is the earliest sense to develop in the fetus. The development of an infant's haptic senses and how it relates to the development of the other senses such as vision has been the target of much research. Human babies have been observed to have enormous difficulty surviving if they do not possess a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing. Babies who can perceive through touch, even without sight and hearing, tend to fare much better. In chimpanzees the sense of touch is highly developed. As newborns they see and hear poorly but cling strongly to their mothers. Harry Harlow conducted a controversial study involving rhesus monkeys and observed that monkeys reared with a "terry cloth mother", a wire feeding apparatus wrapped in softer terry cloth which provided a level of tactile stimulation and comfort, were considerably more emotionally stable as adults than those with a mere wire mother.〔Harlow, H. (1958) American Psychologist, 13, 673.〕 Touching is treated differently from one country to another. Socially acceptable levels of touching varies from one culture to another. In the Thai culture, touching someone's head may be considered to be rude. Remland and Jones (1995) studied groups of people communicating and found that in England (8%), France (5%) and the Netherlands (4%), touching was rare compared to the Italian (14%) and Greek (12.5%) sample.〔Remland, M, Jones, T, & Brinkman, H 1995, 'Interpersonal Distance, Body Orientation, and Touch: Effects of Culture, Gender, and Age', Journal Of Social Psychology, 135, 3, pp. 281-297〕 Striking, pushing, pulling, pinching, kicking, strangling and hand-to-hand fighting are forms of touch in the context of physical abuse. In a sentence like "I never touched him/her" or "Don't you dare to touch him/her" the term touch may be meant as euphemism for either physical abuse or sexual touching. To 'touch oneself' is a euphemism for masturbation. The word touch has many other metaphorical uses. One can be emotionally touched, referring to an action or object that evokes an emotional response. To say "I was touched by your letter" implies the reader felt a strong emotion when reading it. It usually does not include anger, disgust or other forms of emotional rejection unless used in a sarcastic manner. Stoeltje (2003) wrote about how Americans are ‘losing touch’ with this important communication skill. During a study conducted by University of Miami School of Medicine, Touch Research Institutes, American children were said to be more aggressive than their French counterparts while playing at a playground. It was noted that French women touched their children more often than the American parents. ==Categories of haptic communication== Heslin outlines five haptic categories:〔Heslin, R. (1974, May) Steps toward a taxomony of touching. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.〕 ; Functional/professional : expresses task-orientation ; Social/polite: expresses ritual interaction ; Friendship/warmth : expresses idiosyncratic relationship ; Love/intimacy : expresses emotional attachment ; Sexual/arousal : expresses sexual intent The intent of a touch is not always exclusive and touching can evolve to each one of Heslin’s categories. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「haptic communication」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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