I wondered if other primates loved to touch things -- if we let monkeys loose in a department store, would they touch towels, comforters and sheets? Probably. On busy days, I'm positive monkeys are running around in the store.
Apparently, touch is important to our development. This is actually not news to me, but I thought I'd share some of what I've found on Google with you.
People and other primates, especially apes, have a highly developed sense of touch. Meissner's corpuscles are the tactile receptors found in our skin, (especially in the hands and feet) and is correlated with tactile sensitivity.
Apes also have highly developed Meissner's corpuscles; these are found in the skin of all primates, but they are more developed in people and apes.
Research has shown that touch is essential for human emotional and physical development. The landmark Harlow studies from the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated the effects that deprivation of touch had on Rhesus monkeys.
In these experiments, Rhesus infants were taken from their natural mothers and given surrogate mothers. Some were given a wire 'mother'; other infants were given a cloth 'mother.' The wire 'mother' also had food, whereas the cloth 'mother' did not.
Did the infants go to the mother with food? No. The monkeys preferred the cloth 'mother.' The finding that 'touch' is more important than 'food' in promoting attachment to parents was novel and surprising, at the time.
Harlow also observed that Rhesus infants denied a 'secure base' of 'mother' failed to explore their environment. Harlow observed that the Rhesus mother or mother surrogate (cloth mother) represented the secure base that the Rhesus infants needed for development.
More studies showed that touch is more important than any other form of maternal bonding. The Rhesus infants could see, hear and smell their natural mothers. Yet, without touching their mothers, the Rhesus infants failed to explore their environments.
They failed to thrive.
These experiments became well known for other findings, as well. Monkeys that were raised with the touch-deprivation of their mothers tended to avoid most social contact; when they did become involved in social interactions, they became 'hyper aggressive', and some developed abnormal sexual behavior.
Female Rhesus monkeys that had a history of separation from their mother in infancy and childhood were found to be at risk for neglecting their own infants, without a network of increased social support.
Longitudinal studies generations of Rhesus monkeys showed that the amount of time a mother Rhesus monkey spends with her infant is correlated with the amount of time she spent with her own mother.
But there is hope for the Rhesus monkey that was denied contact from his/her mother.
Studies were done in whihch touch was restored to the Rhesus monkeys that had been so deprived; these monkeys were reintroduced to tactile contact -- they had several months of contact with other monkeys -- in groups that included mother monkeys, peer monkeys, younger peers, and foster grandparent monkeys.
The abnormal behaviors of the Rhesus monkeys diminished, considerably so.
Studies done with rat mothers and pups focused on the biochemical changes that touch deprivation between mother rat and pup causes; results showed that growth hormone and stress hormones were considerably reduced in these rat pups so denied.
In contrast, rats that the researchers had handled as infants showed less fear as adults, as well as a more positive immune response and a greater memory than did the rats that had been deprived of maternal contact.
More Rhesus studies showed that infants that had been raised without mothers for the first few months of life had immunological deficits that remained after touch therapy reversed the behavioral problems.
Researchers then measured the amount of time in grooming behavior that an infant monkey gets during its first six months of life and its later ability to produce specific immune antibodies.
The greater the amount of time spent grooming, the greater ability the Rhesus infant had in producing adequate amounts of specific antibodies, one of the important measures of immune function.
More recent research has shown that the therapeutic power of touch, whether to Rhesus infants or to people of any age, produces an immune response in the skin that may help moderate the destructive effects that the lack of earlier touch may have had on development.
Previous articles in series:
1.Rock me like a hurricane - Or, how to make love like a Bonobo
2.Do animals have feelings? Of course, but more than we may believe
3.When mother animals adopt other animals
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Comments: 86
And animals, too. More on the life of animals this month.
Soon to go out and run in the sun and breeze.
Your article made me think of the whole touch thing.
In looking over the photos that I took of the doe and fawn in the article I did a couple of weeks ago, it was apparent to me that there was far more going on between them than just "grooming"... You could almost SEE the affection travel from mother to child as the doe nuzzled and licked the fawn... They used to think that this "mothering" thing in animals was strictly "instinct" but many studies (notably some done with gorillas) have absolutely PROVED that mothering/nurturing is NOT instinctual but, rather, "learned"...
They were shown just sitting and staring into space.
Some flew into rages and attacked other monkeys for no reason.
The same film had different amounts of monkeys crowded into different sized cages.
They had constant, terrible dominance fights.
I thought it was a very cruel experiment.
I know our puppy loves to smell flowers, it's a "hoot". She looks like Flower the skunk in Bambie when she does it.
Enjoyed the article and I am a newbie, so thank you for re-posting it. :)
I have been following for some time a project to reintroduce orangutans into the wild in Indonesia, and from their behaviors due to their interactions with humans in the project's process, groups of orangutans had begun to form increasingly complex societies on their own in the wild, which ordinarily they do not do. Without human interaction, they tend to be solitary, though they appear to have the highest human-relative intelligence of all primates next to human beings. It seems that orangutans are so intelligent that they can actually observe human nature under the conditions of being helped, especially if it occurs during childhood developmental stages, and incorporate some of that into their own lives, even to the point of working together to form a society that can help them better survive by working and learning together. Recently I read some reports through Project Muse, and that observation also was being studied, and is beginning to turn a lot of old theory on its head, about the nature / culture dualism, which then of course makes us wiser about our own behaviors as humans.
I know it's a bit off-subject to your wonderful article on the importance of the tactile to development, but your articles always seem to inspire my own thinking about nature - and not just our primate cousins - which I actually use to therapeutically help people trapped by trauma in their lives. For example, why not share, with boundaries, one's own life a bit with someone in suffering, humanize it... show how I might have problem-solved my own issues, rather than being the detached analyst, and w/o counter-transference issues?
By the way, one of my first professional jobs long ago was to be a sort of teacher with autistic youth (using behavior modification), but what I found was always most effective to bridge the communications/emotions gap, was the tactile.
Anyways, I read an interview not long ago with a zoologist in the employ of the Thai government. He suggested a disadvantage to the western notion of leaving animals to their own perhaps cruel devices, in that detached non-intrusive crystal tower way, in our attempts to help enable impacted animal communities and their habitats to return to their previous nature, following human exploitation. Here he was addressing that Buddhist monastery where tigers are being cared for by some monks, which a good friend of mine has worked on. Perhaps it is the local Buddhist influence, but the government zoologist suggested that nature could actually be enabled to better develop through the compassionate effect of scientifically sound and emotionally close human interaction, which he acknowledged is at odds with the western scientific model, of helping a habitat and its animals return to *nature* by being as emotionally distant as possible from the process. Like I wrote you in your other article, I'm really beginning to reevaluate the whole anthropomorphic philosophy that was screwed into my thinking when I was a science student long ago.
We are but animals. Now to pick up my cats again - but first to don a heavier robe - one cat - my fave - the orange one - is affectionate but forgets to retract his claws.
Thank you all.
Those deprived of tactile loving contact became very sickly, again confirming the importance of touch to the immune system's development, they poorly gained weight and their neurological developments were impacted.
http://spartans.sstx.org/~jwoodruff/links/commonsense1.html
Now, I must avail myself of the sensory experience of sleep - cats, blanket, breeze, and fresh, clean, bleached sheets. SO tired today. Was up in the middle of the night, getting family ready for Shanghai.
Thank you, Cheryl.
Thank you all.
Gather Broadcasting: Have it your way
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TY Kimberly.
Elsie, I agree with you so much....When I had my babies, I had 4 months off for my son - then went back part time - and 4 months off for my daughter and went back part time. I nursed my kids. All the books said not to do what I did - I nursed them to sleep - which meant I was holding them for hours - on the couch - they were nursed until they slept - and the babies just continued to nurse while sleeping - by this time, I was half asleep, too. But I knew that they were getting SOME nutrition - AND the much needed touch. My son was nursed for 8 months, my daughter fior 12 months. My son crawled away, my daughter walked away. It took hours a day but was necesssary for emotional development. My son were always very close to me.
If a person lives alone or does not have a lover, it is essential that you get your sense of touch from various sources - pets, clothing, blankets, baths, swimming, various sources.
What's important to state here is that touching has become primordial human necessity. Without it psychological and physical growth is stunted and truncated. Then we wonder why certain people behave the way they do.
Bob, it is so important. I love touching, too. I choose my clothes, blankets and towels based on touch.
'Touch me not' issues are suject to change,
thank you for the excellent research Kathy !!!
I am not surprised touch is key in our development , unfortunately for myself , I have a real phobia of touching strangers or be touched by strangers .
Needles to say that crowds are a nightmare for me and the same goes for planes , trains and buses .
Actually I offer free and cheap entertaining for my family . What can I say , my life is a circus LOL