Tactual Perception
Tactual
perception refers to every type of sensation related to the sense of touch, be it cutaneous (pressure, vibration, temperature), kinaesthetic (limb movement) or proprioceptive (position of the body) (Loomis & Lederman, 1986). Using these senses, a wealth of
information about the world around us can be acquired. This is most notable when handling objects. Immediately,
information is available about the object’s size, shape, weight, temperature and material. This review article focuses on this last type of information. The tactual sense provides us with a number of aspects related to an object’s material, most notably roughness, compliance, coldness and slipperiness. Roughness is related to the height differences on the surface of the material; compliance to the material’s elasticity; coldness to the material’s heat capacity and thermal conductivity; and slipperiness to the friction between the material and the skin. Two of these aspects, roughness and slipperiness, are surface properties, whereas the other two, compliance and coldness, are bulk properties. Another division can be made according to whether or not movement is required: Roughness and coldness can be perceived statically, whereas compliance and slipperiness have to be perceived dynamically, through squeezing or stroking, respectively. These different divisions show that although these aspects are all material properties,
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