Moreover, with the small forces applied during the longitudinal sweeps, the stress in the material under the nodule is not impacted as much as the stress in the material above the nodule. This phenomenon comes from the fact that during the palpation sweeps, the displacement of the nodule is small compared to the displacement of tissue above the nodule. This shows that the probe is more significantly affected by the amount of material above the nodule (the nodule depth) than the amount of material under the nodule.