In your skin: psychophysiology of touch observation - EEG data set

EEG raw data of 50 participants (numbers 2 - 52; in some participants recordings were briefly paused and a second recording was started which is indicated by the same number followed by b) who have taken part in two vicarious touch experiments. In the first experiment, participants observed a stick moving towards a hand, briefly touching it and moving back, or the touch of the hand was prevented by a clear barrier (touch and no-touch conditions; see also touch (t) and no-touch (nt) images used); in the second experiment, participants saw a hand being touch (other-directed touch condition) by a stick with either a soft or hard surface (soft and hard touch texture conditions), and in the last block participants were instructed that the touch movement observed was self-directed and they should feel he touch (self-directed touch condition). In total there were 960 trials. On half of the trials a tactile probe (5 ms) was presented to both index fingers (marker 6) concurrently with the onset of the object/stick touching the hand (no probe trials have a marker of 16 that is equivalent in timing to 6). On each trial a marker was presented 20 ms before the onset of the visual movement sequence of a stick touching a hand and 540 ms before the observed touch and tactile probe. Markers for the different trial types were 21-28 for experiment 1 (21 - 24 touch trials; 25 - 28 no-touch trials) and 31 - 38 for experiment 2 where touch was directed to a hand image as in exp 1 (with 31 - 34 hard surface touch and 35 - 38 soft surface touch). In the second half of experiment 2 participants were told that the touch is self-directed and markers are 41 - 48 (41 - 44 hard and 45 - 48 soft touch). 500 ms after the end of touch movement sequence a coloured rectangle was presented and participants had to press the space bar with both of their thumbs if the colour of the rectangle was a go signal (80% of trials - maker 100) or withhold the response (no-go trial; 20% of all trials - marker 200; marker 200 also indicated a missed go response) .

The study was approved by City, University of London, Psychology Research Ethics Committee.