The Change in Fingertip Contact Area as a Novel Proprioceptive Cue.

ABSTRACT: Humans, many animals, and certain robotic hands have deformable fingertip pads [1, 2]. Deformable pads have the advantage of conforming to the objects that are being touched, ensuring a stable grasp for a large range of forces and shapes. Pad deformations change with finger displacements during touch. Pushing a finger against an external surface typically provokes an increase of the gross contact area [3], potentially providing a relative motion cue, a situation comparable to looming in vision [4]. The rate of increase of the area of contact also depends on the compliance of the object [5]. Because objects normally do not suddenly change compliance, participants may interpret an artificially induced variation in compliance, which coincides with a change in the gross contact area, as a chan

SUBMITTER: Moscatelli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4865678 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature