Talk:Dynamic (effortful) touch
This is an interesting chapter, but my generally favorable impression was tempered by the sometimes dense language used. Suggestions are made below.
Introduction. It would be very helpful to distinguish dynamic touch from haptic touch here.
Methods for studying dynamic touch. The suggestion that knowledge of the properties of a hand-held object comes only from wielding the object is not correct. Lederman and Klatzky described a range of exploratory movements that accompany the evaluation of hand-held objects, including properties ranging from shape (which includes contour following movements) to texture and compliance. These exploratory movements generate a rich pattern of cutaneous and proprioceptive feedback that subjects use to evaluate hand-held objects. This needs to be clarified.
Definite scaling and the issue of colinearity. Not all readers will be familiar with definite scaling. Please explain this.
An object’s Mass, an object’s heaviness. Charpentier’s size-weight illusion. Not all readers will be familiar with this. Please describe the illusion, and relate this to the roles of visual feedback and expectation in the illusion. For large objects, the motor output is much less than expected from the size of the object, leading subjects to underestimate its weight. Such observations are generally interpreted as favoring a role for efference copy or corollary discharge in judging weight.
Orienting objects and limbs Last sentence. A tensor based theory of WHAT?
Functional properties: perceiving affordances. For a general audience, it would be better to define “affordances” in the text, and perhaps use a simpler title for this section. . . Last sentence of this section: please reword as this is not clear. “Moreover, distinct relations….”
Independence of local anatomy. para 2, last sentence. I do not follow the final part of the last sentence “geriatric research … the same”. What underlying process is referred to here?
para 3. The performance of the subject with a lesion of the dorsal column projections could have relied on a sense of effort, related to the motor command, and so independent of sensory feedback. In general, the contribution of central factors to dynamic touch is not addressed in this chapter.
The medium of dynamic (effortful) touch. I do not understand the phrase beginning with “The body interpreted as tensegrity architecture…” Please clarify this.
Learning and expertise. Para 1, last sentence: should be reworded : “perform hockey tasks” is awkward – perhaps it would be better to refer to either playing hockey or wielding a hockey stick.
Controversies in perception… Several terms here should be either defined or replaced with simpler terms: abduction (obviously not used in the anatomical sense here), lawfulness, and polynomial time.
Final conclusion. Prof Turvey concludes that the physical and mathematical problems posed by dynamic touch are intractable. I disagree with this – it is a complex topic but a number of approaches (psychophysical and neurophysiological) are being used to tackle this important question as applied to different types of touch.
31.03.2015 - revised by authors in the light of the above comments
