More Than a Material: Social Interpretation Shapes the Hedonic Evaluation of Human Hand Touch

Affective touch is shaped by a complex interplay between sensory input and cognitive appraisal. This study examined how social interpretation alters affective evaluation when a real human hand is presented alongside eight inanimate materials across three touch conditions (N = 80): active exploration, passive palm stroking, and passive forearm stroking. Passive touch conditions (passive palm and passive forearm) elicited higher pleasantness than active exploration, and follow-up kinematic analyses indicated that active-exploration speed remained consistent across materials, suggesting that material-dependent motor strategies were unlikely to confound the active-passive pleasantness comparison. Critically, the pleasantness of the human hand exhibited distinct "contextual fragility": despite physically identical stimulation, the hand was rated as highly pleasant when interpreted as a skin-like material but significantly less pleasant when perceived as the hand of an unfamiliar person (the experimenter). These findings demonstrate that, without explicit positive social framing, the physical feel of human skin does not guarantee affective reward; perceived social meaning can shift hedonic appraisal and introduce affective ambivalence even in a controlled laboratory setting.