Bridging the gap between the neurophysiology of C-tactile mediated touch and the psychology of how social touch makes us feel, we present a definition of affective touch as mediated through CT afferents. We clarify how gentle stroking activating the CT system communicates a signal for social exchange. We describe what is already known about the nature of this signal and how it is perceived as a function of multisensory input and individual differences. Reviewing sender-specific and receiver-specific effects, we bring these streams together to outline a hybrid communication model of affective touch. We propose that affective touch should not be operationalized by simply involving CT afferent activation and a narrow range of stimulation modes, but instead should consider the entire communication chain: signal, receiver, sender and the dynamic exchange between interacting agents. Such a complete communication model presents new research directions to disentangle bottom-up and top-down mediated effects on perception.

弥合 C 触觉介导的触觉的神经生理学与社会触觉如何让我们感觉的心理学之间的差距，我们提出了通过 CT 传入介导的情感触觉的定义。我们阐明了轻抚激活 CT 系统如何传达社交交流信号。我们描述了关于该信号的性质以及如何将其视为多感官输入和个体差异的函数的已知内容。回顾特定于发送者和特定于接收者的影响，我们将这些流放在一起，以概述情感触摸的混合通信模型。我们建议不应通过简单地涉及 CT 传入激活和窄范围的刺激模式来操作情感触摸，而应考虑整个通信链：信号、接收器、发送者和交互代理之间的动态交换。这样一个完整的交流模型提出了新的研究方向，以解开自下而上和自上而下对感知的中介影响。