Tactual perception: a review of experimental variables and procedures

This paper reviews literature on tactual perception. Throughout this review we will highlight some of the most relevant variables in touch literature: interaction between touch and other senses; type of stimuli, from abstract stimuli such as vibrations, to two- and three-dimensional stimuli, also considering concrete stimuli such as the relation between familiar and unfamiliar stimuli or the haptic perception of faces; type of participants, separating studies with blind participants, studies with children and adults, and an analysis of sex differences in performance; and finally, type of tactile exploration, considering conditions of active and passive touch, the relevance of movement in touch and the relation between exploration and time. This review intends to present an organised overview of the main variables in touch experiments, attending to the main findings described in literature, to guide the design of future works on tactual perception and memory.This work was funded by the Portuguese “Foundation for Science and Technology” through PhD scholarship SFRH/BD/35918/2007