Efficient tactile encoding of object slippage.

ABSTRACT: When grasping objects, we rely on our sense of touch to adjust our grip and react against external perturbations. Less than 200 ms after an unexpected event, the sensorimotor system is able to process tactile information to deduce the frictional strength of the contact and to react accordingly. Given that roughly 1,300 afferents innervate the fingertips, it is unclear how the nervous system can process such a large influx of data in a sufficiently short time span. In this study, we measured the deformation of the skin during the initial stages of incipient sliding for a wide range of frictional conditions. We show that the dominant patterns of deformation are sufficient to estimate the distance between the frictional force and the frictional strength of the contact. From these stereotypica

SUBMITTER: Willemet L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9343352 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature