gargalesis

The tickle can be divided into two separate categories of sensation, knismesis and gargalesis.

Gargalesis refers to harder, laughter-inducing tickling, and involves the repeated application of high pressure to sensitive areas.

The gargalesis type of tickle works on humans and primates, and possibly on other species.

Gargalesis reactions refers to a pleasurable, laughter-provoking feeling caused by a harsher, deeper pressure, stroked across the skin in various regions of the body.

Gargalesis, on the other hand, produces an odd phenomenon: when a person touches "ticklish" parts on their own body no tickling sensation is experienced.

Hall also coined the technical words describing types of tickling: knismesis, or feather-like tickling; and gargalesis, for the harder, laughter inducing type.

While it is possible to trigger a knismesis response in oneself, it is usually impossible to produce gargalesthesia, the gargalesis tickle response, in oneself.

Knismesis and gargalesis are the scientific terms, coined in 1897 by psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin, used to describe the two types of tickling.