The Role of Somatosensory Cortex and Trait Empathy in Perception of Positive Social Touch: A tDCS Study

The current data are part of a study that used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) toinvestigate whether enhancing SI activity influences emotional responses to observed socialtouch, and whether such effects are moderated by individual differences in trait empathy. Fifty-nine participants (ages 19-36) rated emotional responses to images of humans orobjects, either touching or not, during two sessions: sham and anodal tDCS applied over rightor left SI. Participants also completed measures of trait cognitive and emotional empathy. This project contains:1. De-identified task response data2. De-identified Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) questionnaire responses3. De-identified demographics information4. SPSS analytical code (including a SPSS data sheet)