ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses empirical supports for the tactile field and also briefly the metaphysical nature of it. It also discusses some theoretical ramifications of the Tactile Field Hypothesis. Tactile spatial patterns can be transformed into a visual field–based organisation. Physiologically, it has been widely reported that there are activations of visual cortical areas during tactile acuity tasks. Perception of tactile spatial patterns is based on representing the spatial relations between locations of individual stimuli. The ability to perceive a tactile pattern defined by several stimuli is as good as might be expected from the perception of subsets of the pattern. A tactile field sustains representations of the spatial relations between the stimuli within a continuous space on the skin. The receptive field of an individual neuron is the particular region of body surfaces, such as skin or the retina, where stimuli can evoke or modify the firings of the neuron in question.
