TY - JOUR
T1 - Touching the social robot PARO reduces pain perception and salivary oxytocin levels
AU - Geva, Nirit
AU - Uzefovsky, Florina
AU - Levy-Tzedek, Shelly
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Alona Kuzmina for analyzing the salivary oxytocin samples, and Ariel Bistritsky for developing the mobile VAS application. The research was partially supported by the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the Agricultural, Biological and Cognitive Robotics Initiative and by the Marcus Endowment Fund, both at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Financial support was provided by the Rosetrees Trust, the Borten Family Foundation, and the Consolidated Anti-Aging Foundation grants. This research was also supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grants No. 535/16 and 2166/16), the Israel Pain Association, and received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754340.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Human-human social touch improves mood and alleviates pain. No studies have so far tested the effect of human-robot emotional touch on experimentally induced pain ratings, on mood and on oxytocin levels in healthy young adults. Here, we assessed the effect of touching the robot PARO on pain perception, on mood and on salivary oxytocin levels, in 83 young adults. We measured their perceived pain, happiness state, and salivary oxytocin. For the 63 participants in the PARO group, pain was assessed in three conditions: Baseline, Touch (touching PARO) and No-Touch (PARO present). The control group (20 participants) underwent the same measurements without ever encountering PARO. There was a decrease in pain ratings and in oxytocin levels and an increase in happiness ratings compared to baseline only in the PARO group. The Touch condition yielded a larger decrease in pain ratings compared to No-Touch. These effects correlated with the participants’ positive perceptions of the interaction with PARO. Participants with higher perceived ability to communicate with PARO experienced a greater hypoalgesic effect when touching PARO. We show that human-robot social touch is effective in reducing pain ratings, improving mood and - surprisingly - reducing salivary oxytocin levels in adults.
AB - Human-human social touch improves mood and alleviates pain. No studies have so far tested the effect of human-robot emotional touch on experimentally induced pain ratings, on mood and on oxytocin levels in healthy young adults. Here, we assessed the effect of touching the robot PARO on pain perception, on mood and on salivary oxytocin levels, in 83 young adults. We measured their perceived pain, happiness state, and salivary oxytocin. For the 63 participants in the PARO group, pain was assessed in three conditions: Baseline, Touch (touching PARO) and No-Touch (PARO present). The control group (20 participants) underwent the same measurements without ever encountering PARO. There was a decrease in pain ratings and in oxytocin levels and an increase in happiness ratings compared to baseline only in the PARO group. The Touch condition yielded a larger decrease in pain ratings compared to No-Touch. These effects correlated with the participants’ positive perceptions of the interaction with PARO. Participants with higher perceived ability to communicate with PARO experienced a greater hypoalgesic effect when touching PARO. We show that human-robot social touch is effective in reducing pain ratings, improving mood and - surprisingly - reducing salivary oxytocin levels in adults.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086580499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-020-66982-y
DO - 10.1038/s41598-020-66982-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 32555432
AN - SCOPUS:85086580499
VL - 10
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
SN - 2045-2322
IS - 1
M1 - 9814
ER -
