Importance of touch

"A child’s first tactual experiences with objects mostly involve being touched. Once children grow old enough to reach out and touch what surrounds them, their tactual experiences become active. And although children are aware that they are the active agent in kicking the ball and riding the bicycle, it is not always clear whether they are cuddling the toy or whether the toy is cuddling them; touching becomes interactive. This unavoidable reciprocity is characteristic for the sense of touch. Seeing does not imply being seen, neither does hearing imply being heard. But touching implies being touched simultaneously. Touching and being touched are integrated into one phenomenon, the tactual experience."

"Physical interaction with the world is not limited to the hands, it involves the whole body. Physical engagement with the world, the awareness of touching and being touched, makes people aware of being a physical body themselves, sharing the physical world with other physical objects. It is within this embodied encounter that the ‘I’ experiences itself and its surrounding world simultaneously, making this encounter the basis for self-awareness (see Bermudez, Marcel and Eilan, 1995, for an overview). Although people can see their body, they need to sense their body to be aware of themselves. Touch allows sensing one's own body, sensing the borders between the self and the outside world, and the interaction between the two."