Early intimate interactions between mothers and their infants are characterised by mutuality and reciprocity. Although a great deal is known about the distal processes such as gaze and affect, by concentrating on touch this research addresses a key aspect of early life interactions that has received far less attention. this research comprises a single major quasi-experimental and observational longitudinal study, exploring the naturalistic interactions between mothers and their full-term infants (n=32). Dyads were videotaped in their own homes at five age points across the first year - 6 weeks, 3,6,9,12 months. A contextual variation was introduced at 6 months by providing a selection of novel toys for the dyads to play with. Each second of a selected 5 minute period of interaction of both free and toy play contexts were coded using a coding schedule for the type of touch, location of touch, intensity of touch, gaze direction and affectual displays. Repeated measures of analyses of variance revealed differences in the duration and locations of touch, and changes in maternal and infant affect and gaze across the first year. Patterns in these non-verbal communicative strategies were shaped by both age and context. Results revealed that overall maternal touch decreased over the first year of life and the mothers used more passive than active forms of touch when interacting with their infants. The duration of gaze at face decreased for mothers and infants over time, while gaze at body and object increased. Infant initiated touch was both low in frequency and duration but showed commonalities across dyads. The results are discussed drawing on insights from ethology, attachment theory, systems theory and the complexity of the multimodal features of interactive exchange. The results underscore the implications for tactile stimulation in early patterns of communication.

This essay is about the somatosensory system, which is divided into different kinds of touch. Described briefly are the proprioceptive touch, which is transported to the brain via A-alfa fibers and transmits information about e. g. limb position and movement. The cutaneous touch is the main focus and it is divided into discriminative touch and affective touch. The first corresponds to stimuli such as vibration and pressure and is transported via A-beta axons. The second, affective touch, corresponds to e.g. painful and pleasant stimuli which are transported to the brain via A-delta and C-fibers. The aim of the essay is to give an overview of the sense of touch, by doing a literature search, including a discussion of relevant neuronal correlates focusing particularly on affective touch. Moreover, the physiological aspects of touch will be presented. The sources that are used are review and original articles taken from databases such as ScienceDirect, and some articles send by the author. Some books have also been used to find more general knowledge. The conclusion for the essay is that touch is important for humans to function in everyday life. Additional, a specific receptor called C- tactile (CT) is identified to correspond to gentle touch and is suggested to have a vital role for humans in maintaining and forming social bounds. Moreover, discriminative touch is associated with activation in the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, whereas affective touch seems to be associated with activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate cortex and the insula cortex, as well as the prefrontal cortex, which is suggested to be activated during interpersonal touch. Further, the sense touch needs to be more researched in order to understand its functions and benefits deeper.

Introduction: The study is a qualitative exploration of breastfeeding and maternal touch with new mothers who are survivors of childhood sexual assault (CSA) by a family member. / Objectives: The objective of this study is to explore the experience of breastfeeding in mothers with a past history of CSA perpetrated by a family member. / Methods: Using an interpretive framework, eleven women were interviewed with an in-depth semi-structured method and the transcripts coded and analysed by themes. All participants were new mothers who volunteered in response to a community based advertisement. Each woman self-identified as being sexually abused as a child by a family member. / Results: Significant themes that emerged about breastfeeding were the importance of breastfeeding to the maternal-infant relationship and infant development. Other more challenging themes included detachment and dissociation, exposure and control, lack of pleasure, and splitting of the roles of the breasts into maternal or sexual objects.During the course of the study maternal-infant touch was raised as an important theme associated with body boundaries between the mother and her child and related to the mother’s past CSA experience. Baths and nappy changes were two areas in which some mothers encountered difficulties associated directly with their CSA. Some participants encountered difficulties associated with their healthcare. These were largely associated with the participants’ lack of control in the professional encounter and intimate examinations. Baby examination was also problematic with women reporting being concerned about their ability to protect their children within the professional encounter. / Conclusion: Many participants described breastfeeding as a positive experience which enhanced their bonding to their babies. They faced challenges as CSA survivors due to the duality of the breasts as sexual and maternal objects. Touch and maternal-infant boundaries emerged as important themes after CSA

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-59).

This thesis presents a flexible graphene/polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF)/graphene sandwich for three-dimensional touch interactivity. Here, an x-y plane touch is sensed using graphene capacitive elements, while force sensing in the z-direction is by a piezoelectric PVDF/graphene sandwich. By employing different frequency bands for the capacitive- and force-induced electrical signals, the two stimuli are detected simultaneously, achieving three-dimensional touch sensing. Static force sensing and elimination of propagated stress are achieved by augmenting the transient piezo output with the capacitive touch, thus overcoming the intrinsic inability of the piezoelectric material in detecting non-transient force signals and avoiding force touch mis-registration by propagated stress. As a capacitive signal is important for force touch interpretation, optimization algorithms have been developed and implemented. With correlated double sampling (CDS) and spatial low-pass filtering (SLPF) based techniques, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the capacitive touch signal is boosted by 15.6 dB, indicating improved detection accuracy. In terms of the readout speed, fixed pattern and random pattern related down-sampling techniques are applied, giving rise to reductions in both readout time (11.3 ms) and power consumption (8.79 mW).

With the introduction of new input devices, such as multi-touch surface displays, the Nintendo WiiMote, the Microsoft Kinect, and the Leap Motion sensor, among others, the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) finds itself at an important crossroads that requires solving new challenges. Given the amount of three-dimensional (3D) data available today, 3D navigation plays an important role in 3D User Interfaces (3DUI). This dissertation deals with multi-touch, 3D navigation, and how users can explore 3D virtual worlds using a multi-touch, non-stereo, desktop display. The contributions of this dissertation include a feature-extraction algorithm for multi-touch displays (FETOUCH), a multi-touch and gyroscope interaction technique (GyroTouch), a theoretical model for multi-touch interaction using high-level Petri Nets (PeNTa), an algorithm to resolve ambiguities in the multi-touch gesture classification process (Yield), a proposed technique for navigational experiments (FaNS), a proposed gesture (Hold-and-Roll), and an experiment prototype for 3D navigation (3DNav). The verification experiment for 3DNav was conducted with 30 human-subjects of both genders. The experiment used the 3DNav prototype to present a pseudo-universe, where each user was required to find five objects using the multi-touch display and five objects using a game controller (GamePad). For the multi-touch display, 3DNav used a commercial library called GestureWorks in conjunction with Yield to resolve the ambiguity posed by the multiplicity of gestures reported by the initial classification. The experiment compared both devices. The task completion time with multi-touch was slightly shorter, but the difference was not statistically significant. The design of experiment also included an equation that determined the level of video game console expertise of the subjects, which was used to break down users into two groups: casual users and experienced users. The study found that experienced gamers performed significantly faster with the GamePad than casual users. When looking at the groups separately, casual gamers performed significantly better using the multi-touch display, compared to the GamePad. Additional results are found in this dissertation.

This master’s thesis deals with the draft and design of HID periphery Touchpad. The Kinetis microcontroller produced by NXP, TSI periphery and embedded library NXP Touch are used for the design. The resulting device is connected as USB HID type mouse or trackpad. Hardware part of the project is implemented by whole MCU Kinetis Family on PCBs designed by author, one part also uses evaluation kits NXP Freedom KL25z and KE15z.

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Categorization is a complex decision-making process that requires observers to collect information about stimuli using their senses. While research on visual or auditory categorization is extensive, there has been little attention given to tactile categorization. Here we developed a paradigm for studying tactile categorization using 3D-printed objects. Furthermore, we derived a categorization model using Bayesian inference and tested its performance against human participants in our categorization task. This model accurately predicted participant performance in our task but consistently outperformed them, even after extending the learning period for our participants. Through theoretical exploration and simulations, we demonstrated that the presence of sensory measurement noise could account for this performance gap, which we determined was a present factor in participants undergoing our task through a follow-up experiment. Including measurement noise led to a better-fitting model that was able to match the performance of our participants much more closely. Overall, the work in this thesis provides evidence for the efficacy of a tactile categorization experimental paradigm, demonstrates that a Bayesian model is a good fit and predictor for human categorization performance, and underscores the importance of accounting for sensory measurement noise in categorization models. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The process of categorization is an essential part of our daily life as we encounter various things in the world. Here we explore a model that attempts to explain this process. This model is derived using Bayesian inference and was applied to human behavioural data in a categorization task. We found that the model accounted for most of the performance of our participants but consistently outperformed them. We conducted simulations to explore and demonstrate that this difference is primarily due to the presence of sensory noise in participants. Once we accounted for this noise, we found that our model predicted human performance even more accurately. The work in this thesis demonstrates that a Bayesian Categorization Model which accounts for sensory noise is a good fit and predictor for human performance on categorization tasks.

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