Gentle stroking elicits somatosensory ERP that differentiates between hairy and glabrous skin.

Here we asked whether, similar to visual and auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), somatosensory ERPs reflect affect. Participants were stroked on hairy or glabrous skin at five stroking velocities (0.5, 1, 3, 10 and 20 cm/s).

The human "feel" of touch contributes to its perceived pleasantness.

This study explored whether a human-like feel of touch biases perceived pleasantness and whether such a bias depends on top-down cognitive and/or bottom-up sensory processes. In 2 experiments, 11 materials were stroked across the forearm at different velocities (bottom-up) and participants rated tactile pleasantness and humanness. Additionally, in Experiment 1, participants identified the materials (top-down), whereas in Experiment 2, they rated each material with respect to its somatosensory properties (bottom-up).