Measuring How Touching Wood Has You Feeling

When I use my wooden paddle, just having it in my palm makes me feel good, for so many reasons. One of the reasons is the wood itself — the touch of it. In a study, researchers looked at heart rate variability and prefrontal cortex blood oxygenation and sure enough, touching wood leaned people into more of a parasympathetic mode. Cool. But what I really might have loved about this study is that they also used subjective data — they asked the people to describe their reactions. How novel to do a study about how people feel and ask them 'and how did that feel?' Almost as though the experimental subjects' perceptions of themselves were interesting and trustworthy. … Except. For "comfortable" and "relaxed" specifically, there was no difference at all across the five finishes. What they were given was 90 seconds of palm contact, a quick rating, then the next of five samples in rapid succession — a tempo built for catching fast 'autonomic' reflex, not the slower, more integrative thing a mood actually is. If you want to ask someone how they feel, give them a minute, whydoncha?

Physiological Effects of Touching Coated Wood