ABSTRACT
For the past five decades, neurophysiological theories aimed at accounting for the exquisite tactile perceptual capabilities of mammals have been dominated by the view that the somatosensory system, the network of subcortical and cortical neurons specialized in processing somatic information, relies primarily on feedforward (FF) computations to generate a broad spectrum of sensations (e.g., fine touch, thermo sensation, pain, etc.). 29 Although there are many nuances and variations of this general model, 29,57,78,79,121 for the sake of simplicity, throughout this chapter, we will refer to this view as the feedforward model of touch. It is important to emphasize at the outset that the central assumptions made by the proponents of this classical model of touch are almost identical to those used in an equivalent feedforward model of vision. Consequently, some of the arguments presented here have also appeared in recent studies that propose interactive models of vision (for a discussion in vision see Reference 20).
