Academic papers on Tickling

[gluestick]

I'd like to make this a recurring thread on current research on our favorite subject. Will update periodically.

 

[milagros317]

Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has published many papers on laughter and some that involve tickling. There is a chapter on tickling in his book, "Laughter: A Scientific Investigation."
https://www.amazon.com/Laughter-Sci.../ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

[a7hgsir4h3jk]

I absolutely love reading academic papers on tickling. There are surprisingly quite a few. I'll be sure to post them here if/when I find them again!

This thread would make a great sticky.

 

[rdhd]

We need more testing, experimentation, and such. More studies to be done. And of course, studies take time.....

 

[Toesheldback]

Christine Harris is legendary on this topic.

 

[YouNeverKnow175]

Here is what I think is the best one out there, because it's from a philosophical perspective rather than "scientific."

This line basically sums up why, from a mythopoetic perspective, I love tickling: "The ticklish body is doubled by a ticklish soul; tickling calls not only for a physics, but also a metaphysics."

Also, he quotes this line: “In a deeper sense, being tickled to death means taking part in sexual orgasm and experiencing the sterbe und werde feelings (to die and to be resurrected) provoked by deep ecstatic sexual satisfaction.”"

Is there any way this guy isn't one of us? 🙂 Are you out there, Aaron???

 

[milagros317]

Christine Harris is legendary on this topic.

Yes! I have attached her five page article on it with suggestions for further reading at the end. 😀
Enjoy!

 

[gluestick]

Latest paper in Science. Also a short video.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/watch-these-ticklish-rats-laugh-and-jump-joy?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=ticklerats-8995

 

[milagros317]

Latest paper in Science. Also a short video.

Very interesting paper. Thanks for the link. 😀

 

[Mrcool]

I think we should do an experiment

 

[OmahaTickler]

Not a paper, but a (likely) academic anecdote involving a pediatrician/quack on Johnny Carson back in the day. We've been watching old shows from the '70s, when Johnny had 90 minutes, and usually that included a non-star/celebrity, often senior citizens or others with weird talents or claims to fame. In this category was goofy doctors/experts, and on the Jan. 12, 1979, show they aired last month, a celebrity doctor at that time, a Dr. Lendon Smith, started opining about his (and likely accepted elsewhere) theories on tickling and children, and he touched on stuff talked about on this thread --- how people oftendismiss tickling as a childhood or "childish" phenomenon you grow out of. This quack (later lost his license for insurance fraud and illegally dispensing medical advice and drugs) said, and anything in quotes is a quote, how part of his practice involves working with "children who give teachers trouble at school” --- likely ADHD in today’s terms, I may so boldly diagnose. He then says “hypersensitive children are more likely to have trouble at school," and he means physically sensitive, kids he termed "“ticklish, sensitive, goosey kinds of kids." He then said he invented a device that he advises teachers to use to identify such kids. It's a stick with feathers on it, and he said the teachers should have the kids lie on a floor -- "ideally naked" --- and lower the stick and tickle them with feathers. He claims the kids who break first will give them the most "trouble" in class. I think this is worth sharing here because it shows that this "childish" shit we've had to put up with for our lifetimes with our fetish often is reinforced by actual medical "experts." Yeah, he was later discredited, but at that time, he was semi-famous, doing 90-second medical tips on TV and radio at that time, so he had the credibility of being a (creepy) doctor at a time when fewer people were skeptical of "experts" as they are now, with crooks like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz out there. No telling how much damage people like him did, further pushing us in the shadows as "perverts."

Other notable nontickling stuff from the show involving this guy -- sharing the couch with Doc Quack was Richard Pryor and Tim Conway, and Johnny couldn't get a word in edgewise, so Pryor starts cracking up during this guy's ramble, then Tim starts making smart-ass remarks, so maybe that and the audience laughing at the comedians helped deflate this guy's credibility.

 

[Aeveirra]

Ooh this is such a great idea!! 🙂

 

[SadCuzNotTcklsh]

 

[alex]

I see a problem with this article. It says:

[/QUOTE>]the ultrasonic squeaks they make are expressions of pleasure. Not only do rats return over and over again to the place they were tickled, the handling triggers the neurotransmitter dopamine in key reward-related brain circuits in the rodents,


But if tickling is simply a pleasure stimulus-response, then why do so many people HATE being tickled? Why do so many consider it torture? The tickle reflex is conducted by the same nerve fibers that conduct pain. This is why Provine points out that the movements associated with being tickled are more like when your skin is exposed to a flame that you can't get away from than when you're scratching an itch.

Who knows whether that's true of rats as well? But it's worth asking.

 

[longstory]

my sentiments exactly