She and her colleagues are trying to provide those answers. She oversees Queens University s Touch Laboratory and has collaborated for more than a decade on studies of touch with Carnegie Mellon University psychologist Roberta Klatzky, PhD. Together, Lederman and Klatzky have amassed data on how people learn about objects through touch and what kind of information they obtain. If you don t understand the capabilities and limitations of humans, you can t design systems that permit them to operate effectively on remote environments whether they be real or virtual,' says Lederman. Some of their earliest work set out to determine how people learn about objects with their hands. Pressure pressing down on an object provides information about its hardness.
Static contact holding the fingers in one spot, provides information about an object s temperature.
Unsupported holding holding an object out away from a support provides information about its weight. Enclosure wrapping the hand around an object provides information about its global shape and volume. Contour following moving the fingers about the perimeter of an object provides information about an object s exact shape. Then, if necessary, they begin to use the specialized hand movements. These findings provide a basis for understanding how people intelligently explore objects, says Lederman.