ATTENTION! The official conference time is Central European Summer Time (CEST)
29 June 2021
10:00 WELCOME
10:30 Rochelle Ackerley (CNRS Aix-Marseille University, France): Perspectives on the function of human touch and changes to touch habits during the COVID pandemic
11:00 Ilona Croy (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany), Agnieszka Sorokowska (University of Wroclaw, Poland): Interpersonal distance preferences, touch behaviors and country-level COVID-19 early transmission rate
11:30 Juulia Suvilehto (Linköping University, Sweden): How has cohabiting vs living alone impacted social touch during the COVID-19 pandemic?
12:00 Yasemin Abra, Merle Fairhurst (Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany), Laura Mirams (Liverpool John Moores University, UK): The effect of perceived threat from Covid on defensive space and the perceived pleasantness of interpersonal touch
LUNCH
13:30 Chris Dijkerman, Anouk Keizer (Utrecht University, Netherlands): Out of touch: The effect of touch deprivation on affective touch and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic
14:00 Ali Najm (Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus): The Virtual Touch Toolkit: Promoting Self-Discovery Through Affective Touch
14:30 Merle Fairhurst (Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany): Longing for but also avoiding touch: a more nuanced view of our “hunger for touch” during the time of COVID
COFFEE BREAK
15:30 Louise Kirsch (Institut Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, France), Mariana von Mohr (University College London, UK; Universidad Iberoamericana, México): Social touch deprivation during COVID-19
16:00 Isobel Sigley (Loughborough University, UK): ‘It has touched us all’: Considering the social impact of touch and the COVID-19 pandemic
16:30 Francis McGlone (Liverpool John Moores University, UK): A C-voyage: The CLTM is not alone
17:00 Conclusion talk and closing greetings