It is well known that humans possess six senses — touch, sight, taste, smell, hearing, and the so-called sixth sense. But a new study suggests there might be a seventh: remote touch, a capability previously observed in shorebirds like sandpipers and plovers.
Traditionally, touch has been viewed as a proximal sense, dependent on direct contact. However, research presented at the IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) suggests that humans can detect hidden objects through subtle mechanical cues in materials such as sand.
In the study, participants searched for a hidden cube by digging through sand. Remarkably, they could sense minute shifts in the sand that indicated the presence of concealed objects. These findings challenge traditional assumptions about the limits of touch and suggest that the sensory capacity of human hands approaches the theoretical threshold for detecting mechanical reflections in granular media.
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When compared to a robotic tactile sensor trained with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) algorithms, humans achieved 70.7% precision within the detectable range — outperforming the robot, which, despite a wider sensing range, managed only 40% due to false positives. This suggests humans can detect objects before contact, expanding our understanding of tactile perception.
The implications of this discovery are wide-ranging, especially for assistive technologies and robotics. By modelling this human sensitivity, engineers could design robots capable of delicate probing, excavation, and search operations in low-visibility environments. Senior Lecturer Elisabetta Versace noted that understanding remote touch reshapes how we think about perceptual fields, paving the way for advanced tools that could aid archaeology, space exploration, and more.
The study combined two experiments — one testing fingertip sensitivity in humans and another using a tactile robotic arm equipped with an LSTM model for object detection. Conducted by researchers from Queen Mary University of London and University College London, the work highlights the power of collaboration between psychology, robotics, and artificial intelligence in deepening our understanding of sensory perception.
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