Touching, by contrast, is thoroughly palpable and present, a direct mode through which living creatures interact with the environment and each other. The tactile channel is complex and multifaceted, not always easy to distinguish sharply from others (it merges into audition and vibration), and in most treatments of communication makes only a limited appearance. But the patterned and purposive uses of touch are in fact crucial in many human encounters. This is the channel through which physical co-presence is most directly embodied, the first sense experienced in the womb, a regulated mode of social interaction, and symbol as well as vehicle of human interconnectedness. Its role among animals has long been taken for granted, and its significance for human interaction now increasingly recognised. It has justly been termed ‘one of the most basic and commanding forms of human communicative behavior’ (McDaniel and Andersen 1998: 59).