You know how seeing someone scratching an itch makes you feel
itchy, too? That's perfectly normal, a new study says -
especially for those who tend to be on the neurotic side.
Research published online last week in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences offered evidence of the neurotic
basis of contagious itch. In the study, conducted by
psychologists in Britain, 51 healthy adults watched videos of
people either scratching parts of their upper bodies or merely
tapping those areas with their fingers. The participants
reported whether they felt an urge to scratch - and, if so, how
strong it was - when viewing each video. The volunteers also
were videotaped as they watched, so the researchers could
document how often they actually scratched themselves. A big
majority - 64 per cent - scratched themselves at least once
while watching images of others scratching themselves. And while
participants scratched themselves during both sets of videos,
most of the scratching (59.5 per cent, or 132 scratches) t