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An accessible, nontechnical overview of active touch sensing, from sensory receptors in the skin to tactile surfaces on flat screen displays.
Haptics, or haptic sensing, refers to the ability to identify and perceive objects through touch. This is active touch, involving exploration of an object with the hand rather than the passive sensing of a vibration or force on the skin. The development of new technologies, including prosthetic hands and tactile surfaces for flat screen displays, depends on our knowledge of haptics. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lynette Jones offers an accessible overview of haptics, or active touch sensing, and its applications.
Jones explains that haptics involves integrating information from touch and kinesthesia—that is, information both from sensors in the skin and from sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints. The challenge for technology is to reproduce in a virtual world some of the sensations associated with physical interactions with the environment.
Jones maps the building blocks of the tactile system, the receptors in the skin and the skin itself, and how information is processed at this interface with the external world. She describes haptic perception, the processing of haptic information in the brain; haptic illusions, or distorted perceptions of objects and the body itself; tactile and haptic displays, from braille to robotic systems; tactile compensation for other sensory impairments; surface haptics, which creates virtual haptic effects on physical surfaces such as touch screens; and the development of robotic and prosthetic hands that mimic the properties of human hands.
Haptics, or haptic sensing, refers to the ability to identify and perceive objects through touch. This is active touch, involving exploration of an object with the hand rather than the passive sensing of a vibration or force on the skin. The development of new technologies, including prosthetic hands and tactile surfaces for flat screen displays, depends on our knowledge of haptics. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lynette Jones offers an accessible overview of haptics, or active touch sensing, and its applications.
Jones explains that haptics involves integrating information from touch and kinesthesia—that is, information both from sensors in the skin and from sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints. The challenge for technology is to reproduce in a virtual world some of the sensations associated with physical interactions with the environment.
Jones maps the building blocks of the tactile system, the receptors in the skin and the skin itself, and how information is processed at this interface with the external world. She describes haptic perception, the processing of haptic information in the brain; haptic illusions, or distorted perceptions of objects and the body itself; tactile and haptic displays, from braille to robotic systems; tactile compensation for other sensory impairments; surface haptics, which creates virtual haptic effects on physical surfaces such as touch screens; and the development of robotic and prosthetic hands that mimic the properties of human hands.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
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About the author
Lynette Jones
6 books11 followersLynette A. Jones is Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Haptics.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 21, 2019
Got this as a present from a friend — it promised “an accessible, nontechnical overview of active touch sensing”. And it delivered! I went from a mental model of haptics that was “your phone buzzing when you tap a button” to a much richer understanding of how we take in physical, tactile information in the world, how our sense of touch differs from and complements our other senses, and the ways people are applying technology to leverage this unique sense.
November 15, 2018
Personally, never having dedicated any significant thought to my sense of touch before reading Haptics, I now find it impossible not to notice minute details about how my hands interact with the world around me, and the variety of feedback mechanisms in play while I do it.
I picked up the book hoping to understand what "haptics" has to do with my phone and watch, and came out of reading it understanding a lot more. Admittedly, I also came out of it NOT understanding a lot of the underlying processes, mechanics, or in some cases, the vocabulary describing them.
The book is full of examples around the science and application of haptics throughout history, which helped with contextualizing how the practice evolved. The examples speaking to haptic illusions were fascinating and I caught myself poling at my hands and running my fingers over random surfaces on my desk.
The Sci-Fi fan in me wanted a bit more on designing a better hand, or potential extensions to what can be done now that we know the science. There was some discussion about it regarding exoskeletons and a quote about using our own hands as "the" benchmark, but I wanted more!
I picked up the book hoping to understand what "haptics" has to do with my phone and watch, and came out of reading it understanding a lot more. Admittedly, I also came out of it NOT understanding a lot of the underlying processes, mechanics, or in some cases, the vocabulary describing them.
The book is full of examples around the science and application of haptics throughout history, which helped with contextualizing how the practice evolved. The examples speaking to haptic illusions were fascinating and I caught myself poling at my hands and running my fingers over random surfaces on my desk.
The Sci-Fi fan in me wanted a bit more on designing a better hand, or potential extensions to what can be done now that we know the science. There was some discussion about it regarding exoskeletons and a quote about using our own hands as "the" benchmark, but I wanted more!
April 24, 2026
As far as textbook-style works go, this is certainly above average. However, the tradeoff made between length and narrative in my opinion leans too far towards making the book brief (though this critique is more of a personal preference than anything objective). This definitely could have benefitted from more diagrams for clarity, though perhaps that is just the visual learner in me talking.
3.2/5
3.2/5
April 3, 2026
I got most of the way through the book but couldn't bring myself to finish. A grueling read.
I'm not sure who the intended audience for this book is. It's too detailed to be a casual read and but not detailed enough to be a textbook. Maybe someone who is in the field that wants supplemental material.
I'm not sure who the intended audience for this book is. It's too detailed to be a casual read and but not detailed enough to be a textbook. Maybe someone who is in the field that wants supplemental material.
March 10, 2021
But what does it feel like
Haptic perception, kinaesthetic and tactile, is fundamental to human experience in the real world, and increasingly in virtual worlds. This short but highly expert and very readable book takes the reader through the basics. Science, engineering, and applications. And is certainly worth a quick read.
There is only light coverage of actual VR applications. There is only a paragraph on rendering haptics computationally. But this fascinating question can be pursued in longer more specialised texts. VR groinal attachments are not mentioned at all. Though it will surely be a killer application in the near future.
Haptic perception, kinaesthetic and tactile, is fundamental to human experience in the real world, and increasingly in virtual worlds. This short but highly expert and very readable book takes the reader through the basics. Science, engineering, and applications. And is certainly worth a quick read.
There is only light coverage of actual VR applications. There is only a paragraph on rendering haptics computationally. But this fascinating question can be pursued in longer more specialised texts. VR groinal attachments are not mentioned at all. Though it will surely be a killer application in the near future.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews