On the role of friction induced vibrations in tactile perception

Contrary to sight and hearing the tactile sense is still largely unknown. This is mainly due to the lack of kowdledge on the perceived signals and to the difficulty in measuring contact forces and induced vibrations. In particular, it is known that fine texture can be appreciated only by the relative motion between the finger and the object, that gives rise to friction induced vibrations. This work focuses on the investigation of the role of these vibrations on the origin of the tactile perception and surface texture discrimination. A particular attention is placed on the effect of the different amplitude and spectral content of the induced vibrations. The results suggest the role and the limits of friction induced vibrations in the discrimination process.