By Remi Terhorst
Does a friendly touch reduce stress when you’re watching a scary movie? On the upcoming Lowlands Festival, people have the opportunity to experience if shared fear is half as bad. One member of this research group , also known as Dutch Touch Society, is HEMD-researcher Judith Weda, who tells us a bit more about this ‘Hold Tight’ experiment.
“Social touch is very important in human development,” Judith explains. “This starts immediately after birth, with the so called ‘golden hour’. During this hour it is essential that there is skin on skin contact between mother and child. This will mean the start of a bond between the two Physiological processes, like breast feeding for example, also ideally start in this golden hour.”
But not only baby’s are affected by social touch in their development. “It is important to experience social touch, so you’ll know better how to regulate your emotions and stress later in life,” says Judith. “As adults, social touch helps maintain relationships.” And that is why, according to the Dutch Touch Society, it is needed to conduct more research about this subject. The research they are doing at Lowlands Festival focuses on the effects of social touch on stress regulation. This study will help us understand how social touch could potentially be used as a form of treatment, and what role technology could play here.
Skin conductance & HUG
At the festival, from august 15th till august 17th, visitors will be able to watch a multi-sensory, scary movie by themselves, with a stranger or with a robot. When they watch the movie with someone, that person will be holding their hand, while researchers monitor what happens with their stress levels and heart rate.
Stress will be measured through Galvanic Skin Conductance. In this method, electrodes are placed on the hand of the participants, to measure what happens with the skin in a stressful or frightening situation, for example if body sweat increases or not. Conductance increases with stress levels.
The robot being used in the experiment is a HUG, which is a soft, sensory product specially designed to be cuddled. This part of the experiment is right up Judith’s alley, who’s research mainly focuses on digital social touch.
You can find The Dutch Touch Society in one of the containers at the LL Science-part of the festival.
This project is a collaboration between the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Utrecht University, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, University of Twente, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research and Tilburg University.
