the.com/touch
the first sense you build and the last one you lose
means To make physical contact with something, usually by hand, or to affect someone emotionally — and a whole sprawl of senses in between, from a small amount to a delicate skill.
from From Old English, but really arriving through Old French 'tochier,' meaning to touch or strike. The deeper root is thought to be imitative — a Vulgar Latin 'toccare,' possibly echoing the sound of a knock or tap, the way 'tap' and 'tick' mimic their own little impacts. So the word may literally be the noise of contact made into a verb.
- first sense
- Develops in the womb by eight weeks
- skin hunger
- Lack of touch raises stress hormone cortisol
- slowest signals
- Pleasant strokes travel on dedicated slow nerves
- two-point test
- Fingertips detect points one millimeter apart
- largest organ
- Your skin is the body's biggest sensory surface
the talking hands project — deafblind communication method using tactile sign language, developed for helen keller and still used today
phantom vibration syndrome — feeling phone vibrations that aren't real, affecting 89% of college students in 2012 study
gate control theory — ronald melzack's 1965 neuroscience discovery explaining how touch blocks pain signals to the brain