From Psychology Wiki

For the sense of touch, see:

• Somatosensory system, for the various sensory receptors that trigger the experiences labelled as touch or pressure
• Haptics, for the study of human touching behaviour
• Haptic, for haptic technology

• In psychology, the colloquial term "touch" is usually replaced with somatic senses, to better reflect the variety of mechanisms involved.

• Touching another person is a form of physical intimacy and plays an important role in human sexual behavior. Similarly, touching oneself can be autoerotic; special is the dual feeling of a single skin contact.

• Touching is also integral in physical abuse (striking, pushing, pulling, pinching, kicking, strangling, etc.) and hand-to-hand fighting.In a sentence like "I never touched him/her" and "Don't you dare to touch him/her" the term touch may be meant as euphemism for either physical abuse or sexual touching. Touching is a form of nonverbal communication.

• In Thailand touching someone's head is taboo.

• Human babies have been observed to have enormous difficulty surviving if they do not possess a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing. Babies who can perceive through touch, even without sight and hearing, fare much better. Touch can be considered a basic sense in that nearly all life forms have a response to being touched, while only a subset have sight and hearing.

• One can also be emotionally touched. In this metaphorical sense it refers to some action or object that has evoked a sad or joyful emotion. For example, to say "I was touched by your letter" would not imply the reader were angered by it, but that he or she felt joy or sadness when reading it.

See also: body contact (dance), frotteurism, groping, grappling, haptic, massage, mosh, sexual harassment, tickling.