A recent study published in the Journal of Human-Computer Interaction of the American Computer Society found that the most ticklish place on the soles of women's feet is the center of the arch, while for men, it is slightly near the toes.

Researchers say that a machine designed to create the best stimulation for scratching feet can relieve people's stress by inducing uncontrolled laughter. The device is driven by battery and can be installed on any ordinary shoes.

To find out the most itchy part of the sole of the foot, Don Samita Erviti Galla of the University of Auckland and his colleagues stimulated different parts of the sole of the foot with a magnet-driven brush.

The team conducted a test on 13 participants (7 females and 6 males)-when the brush moved to different parts of the sole of the foot, they rated the itching sensation of each part on a 7-point scale.

The average value given by women is 5.57, which is higher than the average value given by men of 3.83. In the most itchy part of the sole, men and women are also slightly different.

The highest score for women is in the center of the arch, while the highest score for men is slightly near the toes.

Using these data, the researchers made a flexible insole that can be inserted into any ordinary shoe through 3D printing.

It is called TickleFoot, and it has three tickling actuators, which can hit the highest scoring point of the sole of the foot in all experiments. The device is powered by lithium-ion battery, the tickling time can last for 60 minutes, and it can also be switched on and off remotely.

Scientists have previously suggested that tickling may play an evolutionary role in social interaction and connection. Elvitigala believes that TickleFoot may be helpful to provide long-distance social interaction between husband and wife, or as a decompression device.

But Marlies Oostland of University College London wants to know whether tickling can help those who are in pain. She studied the response of mice to tickling and found that they need to be in a positive mental state to be tickled.

But she believes that the study of human tickling can produce new knowledge about the operation of the brain, especially the knowledge of predictive coding. In this process, the brain will create a model of a person's environment, and use it to predict sensory input, and then compare it with the actual experience to find surprises.

"I think it is very useful to do such research." Ostrander said, "The brain uses predictive coding. A naturalistic research method is to study things like tickling. Because this is a very unusual behavior, we will actively look for accidents. For any other behavior, we try to reduce accidents, because when an accident happens, it probably means that the predator is trying to kill you. "

Related paper information:

https://doi.org/ 10. 1 145/3490496