serve to direct the behavior, attitude, or feeling state of the recipient. The key feature of these touches is that almost all of the touches are initiated by the person who attempts influence. These touches can be further classified as compliance, attention-getting, and announcing a response. Compliance: Attempts to direct behavior of another person, and often, by implication, to influence attitudes or feelings. Attention-getting: Serve to direct the touch recipient's perceptual focus toward something. Announcing a response: Call attention to and emphasize a feeling state of initiator; implicitly requests affect response from another. Ritualistic These touches consist of greeting and departure touches. They serve no other function than to help make transitions in and out of focused interaction. Greeting: Serve as part of the act of acknowledging another at the opening of an encounter. Departure: Serve as a part of the act of closing an encounter Hybrid These touches involve two or more of the meanings described above. These touches can be further classified as greeting/affection and departure/affection. Greeting/affection: Express affection and acknowledgement of the initiation of an encounter Departure/affection: Express affection and serve to close an encounter Task-related These touches are directly associated with the performance of a task. These touches can be further classified as: Reference to appearance: Point out or inspect a body part or artefact referred to in a verbal comment about appearance Instrumental ancillary: Occur as an unnecessary part of the accomplishment of a task Instrumental intrinsic: Accomplish a task in and out of itself i.e., a helping touch. Accidental These touches are perceived as unintentional and have no meaning. They consist mainly of brushes. Research by Martin in a retailing context found that male and female shoppers who were accidentally touched from behind by other shoppers left a store earlier than people who had not been touched and evaluated brands more negatively, resulting in the Accidental Interpersonal Touch effect. Culture The amount of touching that occurs within a culture is largely based on the relative high context or low context of the culture. High contact In a high contact culture, many things are not verbally stated but are expressed through physical touch. For instance, Cheek kissing is a very common method of greeting in Latin America, but among Northern Europeans it is an uncommon form of greeting. Different cultures have different display rules, the degree with which emotions are expressed. Cultural display rules also