February 02, 2005
On Haptics
Extending Our Sense of Touch
"...That's how I learned that in ecological psychology, "haptic touch" is the name of the system that lets us feel stuff through objects we hold, to "feel the road through the stick or cane, or even through the wheels of a car we are driving." (Andy Clark) explained that, in this instance, "force and torque sensors buried in the arm" and other muscles are "activated the same way when we use a stick as when we touch with our hand." This is what allows humans (and a goodly number of our primate cousins—not to mention possibly raccoons and otters) to treat tools as if they were extensions of our bodies, extending our sense of touch through them." From Touching Your Own Future: Haptic Tools by Laurie Rowell. Also see Touch in Virtual Environments: Haptics and the Design of Interactive Systems
Posted by jo at February 2, 2005 12:13 PM
