ABSTRACT
Perception starts with information pick up. More specifically, for haptic perception, “the stimulus information from wielding can only be an invariant of the changing flux of stimulation in the muscle and the tendons: an exteroceptive invariant in the play of forces”. Thus, what specifies haptic perception of object properties in dynamic touch has to be force pattern. This chapter shows that, in wielding a rod, force does affect perceived length. Between different lengths of rods, longer rods were perceived as longer. Between different rebound conditions, perceived length were shortened with rebound. As inertia remains the same in all conditions, and force was reduced in the rebound conditions, results support the force hypothesis. In visual perception, it is an optical array, and in haptic perception, it must be a force array. Haptic perception must relate to sensory stimulation in the skin, muscle and tendons.
