Subliminal effect of touch sensations

2010/10/03 Aulestiarte Lete, Izaro - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Anatomia/Fisiologia
• Giza zientziak

Touch is one of the senses that develops faster. However, researchers say that studies on human behavior usually analyse much less than other senses.

The success you can have in an upcoming job interview may not have much to do with your resume! It is possible that the weight of this folder you have selected at the last minute of presenting your resume is of greater importance in the decision of your interviewers. Someone might think that the detail of the folder is nothing more than a nonsense. However, in a recent experiment, researchers have seen something else.

Psychologists from Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University have worked together to closely observe the world of touch sensations. Conclusions published by the journal Science.

The researchers have explained that what we feel physically can directly affect the reactions that certain people or events produce in us. Some of these reactions also occur “in a totally unconscious way”. “Touch is the first sense that we develop human beings from the very moment we are in contact with the mother, and can continue to be the support in which their social assessments or judgments are sustained. Unfortunately, in the studies of behavior, touch is the most despised sense.”

It is known that when exploring new things, the eyes play a very important role. “But it must be taken into account that the human being makes a metaphorical abstraction that relates him directly to what he has felt for the first time. Giving a kiss or a quintet to someone can have a critical influence on social interactions. That is, when exploring something for the first time, everything influences: seeing, touching, feeling and manipulating. They are complementary.”

Examples of examples are:

According to the researchers, the texture, size and texture of a simple chair can be decisive in getting well out of a negotiation.

Mahender G

To prove it, they have carried out different experiments. In one of them, for example, they wanted to analyze the effect of the weight of an object, “the weight is usually related metaphorically with seriousness and importance,” say the researchers.

The above hypothetical case has been observed. Volunteers were asked to select staff for a company, they were given the resume of some candidates in light folders and those of others in heavier folders. The volunteers noted that the potential owners of the resumes of heavy folders were the “most trained”. Moreover, those who analyzed the material of heavy folders stated that their arbitrary work was more important than that of others.

In another experiment, participants were told a story in which social interaction was explained and, then, they were ordered to order the pieces of a puzzle or soft. Because those who worked with rough pieces had more tendency to say that the interaction of history itself was “uncoordinated and rough.”

Giving a kiss or a quintet to someone can have a critical influence on social interactions.

The results obtained in a third session were also significant, according to the researchers. The volunteers had to make a deal about the price of a car, for it they sat some on soft chairs and others on hard chairs. Well, psychologists say that those of this last group acted with much less flexibility.

They say that “the results are surprising, in their simplicity” and that they could serve to raise awareness of the importance of touch in cognition. “We are clear that control of the tactical environment can be an effective tactic for negotiators, surveyors and vendors, or in search of employment.”

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