December 21, 2016

The human physical touch is irreplaceable. The Straits Times reported last week on research conducted by Associate Professor Annett Schirmer (Dept of Psychology) and her team that demonstrates that children who receive more physical touches from their mothers were more socially attuned.

Over the course of two years, the team studied 39 mother-child pairs. Each pair was made to participate in 10 minutes play sessions. The number of times each child received physical touches from their mother during these sessions was recorded. Subsequently, the children were put through a psychological test to assess if they were more preoccupied with human faces or houses. Children who received more touches from their mums during the play sessions were more preoccupied with human faces. No doubt advances in digital technologies have allowed us to remain connected even though we are physically far apart, but the physical touch carries a sense of human affection which is not substitutable. In this digital era, we need the human touch more than ever.

To read the original article, please click here.