Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body lightly so as to cause laughter or twitching movements. It can give a mixed feeling of pleasure and displeasure.
The word evolved from the Middle English tikelen, perhaps frequentative of ticken, to touch lightly.
The sensation of surprise elicited by tickling protects against crawling animals and insects, such as spiders, mosquitos, scorpions or beetles, which may be why it evolved in many animals, including rats. However, the continued laughter produced by tickling cannot be explained with this evolutionary survival advantage alone.
Tickling is almost certainly a form of social interaction. One feature of tickling is that we do not laugh when we tickle ourselves, only when other people tickle us. This implies that the brain may have a different mechanism for responding to the two types of tickling. Charles Darwin theorised on the link between tickling and social relations, arguing that tickling provokes laughter through the anticipation of pleasure. If a stranger tickles a child without any preliminaries, catching the child by surprise, the likely result will be not laughter but withdrawal and displeasure. Darwin also noticed that for tickling to be effective, you must not know the precise point of stimulation in advance, and reasoned that this is why you cannot effectively tickle yourself.
Researcher Sarah-Jayne Blakemore[?] confirmed Darwin's propositions by investigating how the brain distinguishes between sensations we create for ourselves and sensations others create for us. Blackmore used robotic arms to tickle people and found them to be as effective as real people in provoking laughter. When her subjects used a joystick to control the tickling robot, however, they could not make themselves laugh. This suggests that when a person tries to tickle him- or herself, the cerebellum sends to the somatosensory cortex[?] precise information on the position of the tickling target and therefore what sensation to expect. Apparently some cortical mechanism then decreases or inhibits the tickling sensation.
Washoe[?], a chimpanzee who learned to use the American Sign Language, has been reported to frequently make the sign for "tickle me" to researchers, similar to children who enjoy being tickled.
The idiom tickled pink means "pleased or delighted".
Other references
Blakemore S-J, DM Wolpert & CD Frith (1998). Central cancellation of self-produced tickle sensation. Nature Neuroscience 1, 635-640.
Carlsson K, P Petrovic, S Skar, KM Petersson & M Ingvar (2000). Neural processing in anticipation of a sensory stimulus. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12, 691-703.
Berk, L.S., Tan, S.A., Fry, W.F., Napier, B.J., Lee, J.W., Hubbard, R.W., Lewis, J.E. and Eby, W.C. Neuroendocrine and stress hormone changes during mirthful laughter. Am. J. Med. Sci., 298:390-396, 1989.
Boiten, F. Autonomic response patterns during voluntary facial action. Psychophysiol., 33:123-131, 1996.
Ekman, P., Levenson, R.W. and Friesen, W.V. Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes among emotions. Science, 221:1208-1210, 1983.
Fried, I., Wilson, C.L., MacDonald, K.A. and Behnke, E.J. Electric current stimulates laughter. Nature, 391:650, 1998.
Fry Jr., W.F. The physiologic effects of humor, mirth, and laughter. JAMA, 267:1857-1858, 1992.
Yoon, C.K. Don't make me laugh: scientists tackle tickling. J. NIH Research, 9:34-35, 1997.
External Links
- Website detailing why a people cannot tickle themselves (http://www.cerebronosso.bio.br/paginas/tickle.html)
- Telegraph (UK) Article on "robot tickling experiment" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/1998/10/29/ecftick29.xml)
Common misspelling and questions (FAQ)
ickling tckling tikling ticling ticking ticklng ticklig ticklin itckling tcikling tikcling ticlking tickilng ticklnig ticklign ticklin ttickling tiickling ticckling tickkling ticklling tickliing ticklinng ticklingg 5ickling rickling fickling 6ickling gickling 6ickling yickling gickling t8ckling tuckling tjckling t9ckling tkckling t9ckling tockling tkckling tidkling tixkling tifkling tifkling tivkling ticiling ticjling ticmling ticoling tic,ling ticoling ticlling tic,ling tickoing tickking tick,ing tickping tick.ing tickping tick;ing tick.ing tickl8ng ticklung tickljng tickl9ng ticklkng tickl9ng ticklong ticklkng ticklihg ticklibg ticklijg ticklijg ticklimg ticklint ticklinf ticklinv tickliny ticklinb tickliny ticklinh ticklinb tyckling yickling tyickling ticklings tikclingintended by the author of the work, although tilde be used to convey punctuation intended by the indicate hypertext links; OR [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at form by the program that displays the etext (as is OR [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC "Small Print!" statement. [3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". *END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* BOOK OF NONSENSE by EDWARD LEAR There was an Old Derry down Derry, So he made them a Book, At the fun of that Derry down Derry! GRAND-NEPHEWS, AND GRAND-NIECES made and composed for their parents,) IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, EDWARD LEAR .