A group of scientists from the United Kingdom say that human beings have a seventh sense: the ability to perceive hidden objects without touching them directly – an ability they call remote touch.
The discovery of this perceptual ability, first documented in humans, was inspired by the ability of coastal birds, such as the yellow-legged sandpiper, to detect prey under sand.
Remote touch enables detection of objects buried beneath granular materials through subtle mechanical signals transmitted through the medium when movement is applied nearby, the study says.
The new sense would be added to touch, hearing, vision, taste and smell, in addition to the so-called internal sense, proprioception, which allows the brain to recognize the position of body parts without resorting to vision. The work was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning.
First evidence of remote contact in humans
The researchers identified this ability after conducting a comparative experiment between robots and twelve human participants. The volunteers gently moved their fingers across the sand, touching it, and were able to detect a hidden cube with great precision by noticing tiny movements on the surface.
“This research reveals that humans can detect objects buried in sand before actual contact, expanding our understanding of the scope of the sense of touch,” the study says.
“This is the first time remote touch has been studied in humans, and it changes our conception of the perceptual world – the so-called receptive field – in living things, including humans,” co-author Elisabetta Versace, professor of psychology and director of the Prepared Minds Lab, said in a Queen Mary University news release.
Better performance than robots
Although the robots detected objects at a greater distance in testing, their accuracy was lower: humans got 70.7% correct, while the robot’s touch sensor generated many false positives, limiting itself to 40% accuracy.
This demonstrates that humans can perceive an object before seeing or touching it. “These results confirm that people can actually sense an object before physical contact, a surprising ability for a sense that is typically linked to objects that come into direct contact with us. Both humans and robots performed very close to the maximum sensitivity predicted with physics and motion models,” the study said.
“This is a great example of how psychology, robotics and artificial intelligence can combine, showing that multidisciplinary collaboration can generate both fundamental discoveries and technological innovations,” highlights co-author Lorenzo Jamone, associate professor of robotics and AI at University College London.
According to a statement from the universities, the research offers valuable references for improving assistive technologies and robotic touch sensing. Using human perception as a model, engineers can design robotic systems incorporating natural tactile sensitivity for real-world applications such as probing, digging, or research tasks where vision is limited.
Implications for the future of robotics and AI
Lead author Zhengqi Chen, a doctoral student at the Advanced Robotics Laboratory at Queen Mary University of London, suggests the finding could also spur new sensing technologies in robotics.
“This knowledge can serve as a basis for the development of advanced robots capable of performing delicate operations, such as locating archaeological objects without damaging them, or exploring sandy or granular terrain, such as the Martian floor or the ocean floor,” he says.
“The research paves the way for the development of tactile systems that make the exploration of hidden or dangerous places safer, smarter and more efficient,” he concludes.
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