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BLOG #3
A Natural History of the Senses
Touch 

    “Infants who suffered short time deprivation became adolescents who clung to one another obsessively instead of developing into independent, confident individuals. When they suffered long term deprivation, they avoided one another and became aggressive when they did come in contact, violent loners who didn’t form good relationships”. 
            For ethical reasons it is clear as to why testing such as this cannot be done on human children, so the researchers used monkeys instead. It would be interesting to be able to test this and be able to say that after thorough and proper testing researchers have confirmed that not having the touch of ones mother in adolescence can greatly affect how they handle the people around them later on. However, I feel extremely confident in saying that the results would be the same with humans. This is by no means saying that it is impossible to grow up to be a normal and successful person if you never met your mother, it is just touching upon a greater theme of how important touch is to our mental health. This is interesting since the scientists made it so the monkeys could hear and communicate with each other and just couldn’t touch physically. This calls into question our impressions on how it is possible to “reach” or “touch” someone without physical contact.
         Perhaps this is why there is such a high importance placed on physicality when it comes to relationships. There are a lot of people who don’t believe love is “real” or even “possible” without having a physical relationship as well as an emotional one. Anatomically, the way our bodies and touch senses are set up, it makes sense that for reproduction and protection of young, etc. that touching is crucial for our survival as a species. But what about touch when it comes to our emotional and mental well being? What evolutionary purpose would it serve to have us need touch to properly develop emotionally. If anything, needing this type of attention and care to further emotional and cognitive growth would only serve as a disadvantage in terms of productivity. I think it is extremely uncommon for people to make a connection between how important touch is when it comes emotional health, and with good reason, it is not a concept that is really ever addressed or thought about. However, just based on this research alone it is clear that the subject is of great importance and really should be studied further. 

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