The influence of force on the encoding and perception of affective touch

Faresse, S ORCID: 0009-0005-2242-2559, Thrace, L ORCID: 0009-0001-9814-367X, Ali, SH ORCID: 0000-0003-4744-4963, Makdani, A ORCID: 0000-0002-2192-3862, McGlone, F, Marshall, AG ORCID: 0000-0001-8273-7089, Trotter, PD ORCID: 0000-0003-2667-011X and Ackerley, R ORCID: 0000-0003-4621-7929 (2026) The influence of force on the encoding and perception of affective touch. Journal of Physiology. ISSN 0022-3751

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Abstract

Stroking touch has been shown to be most pleasant at intermediate velocities of 1–10 cm s−1, which relates well to the activity of C-low-threshold mechanoreceptors (C-LTMRs), also called C-tactile afferents in humans, that have been implicated in encoding positive affective touch. This well-established finding has been demonstrated at gentle stroking forces (typically, 0.4 N peak normal force), yet few studies have investigated the effect of force on the perception of stroking touch or on the activity of C-LTMRs. We investigated the pleasantness and intensity of stroking touch (0.3, 1, 3, 10 and 30 cm s−1) at different forces (0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 N) on hairy forearm skin and compared this with responses from C-LTMRs during stroking touch at the same velocities, but over fewer forces (0.05, 0.4 and 1.5 N). We found significant effects of stroking velocity and force for both tactile pleasantness and intensity ratings. Pleasantness showed the typical inverted U-shaped relationship over stroking velocities, but this was modified by force; higher forces significantly decreased pleasantness at faster velocities. Conversely, tactile intensity increased linearly with both increasing velocity and force. Recordings from seven C-LTMRs showed that their firing frequency changed with stroking velocity, but that they were strongly modulated by force. Overall, we demonstrate the profound effect that force has on the perception of stroking touch, whereby tactile pleasantness and intensity appear to be a multi-faceted construct that is related to C-LTMR and Aβ-LTMR activity, respectively, but that the firing in individual mechanoreceptor populations cannot account fully for percepts.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	C‐low‐threshold mechanoreceptor; C‐tactile afferent; affective touch; human; mechanoreceptor; microneurography; 32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences; 3202 Clinical Sciences; Complementary and Integrative Health; 06 Biological Sciences; 11 Medical and Health Sciences; Physiology; 31 Biological sciences; 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences; 42 Health sciences
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Psychology (from Sep 2019)
Publisher:	Wiley
Date of acceptance:	30 August 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	6 October 2026
Date Deposited:	06 Oct 2026 14:25
Last Modified:	06 Oct 2026 14:25
DOI or ID number:	10.1113/JP290946
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29619

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