Touch is one of the earliest senses through which parent and infant interact, possibly even before birth. We are particularly interested in why and how touch stimulates exploration and learning. We have shown that maternal stroking promotes learning of facial identities, in 4 month old infants (Della Longa, Gliga & Farroni, 2018) and we have investigated the neural underpinnings of caregiving touch, in young infants (Pirazzoli et al., 2018).

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We use a variety of methods such as NIRS, EEG, Heart rate, Eye-tracking, Hormone assays, Observational, Diaries and Questionnaires.

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We have been funded by The British Academy and we collaborate with Pampers (P&G).