ABSTRACT
When people interact with objects in the world using their sense of touch, contact is often made with a tool. We use a key to open a door, a pencil to write on paper, or a spoon to stir a pot. As David Katz [Katz 25] observed, under these circumstances our phenomenology-our immediate experience of the world-concerns the touched surface, not the tool, which in some sense is transparent to the act of touching. The issues addressed in this chapter begin with this observation:
• How well are the object properties sensed through a rigid linkage between the skin and the surface?
