This study explores how age, gender, and different touch gestures affect tactile perception by examining the biophysical properties of forty human fingers. Findings show that finger size, contact area, and mechanoreceptor density are crucial in understanding how people perceive touch differently.
By assessing both static and dynamic gestures in two directions, this research highlights the role of individual variations in touch perception, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of sensory feedback. This study of 40 human fingers examined how age, gender, and touch gestures influence static and active tactile perception.
By analyzing the real contact area and finger size, researchers found that women generally have enhanced tactile perception until age 40, after which differences between genders diminish. The study highlights the importance of Merkel disks and Meissner corpuscles, whose densities correlate with tactile perception. Additionally, the findings confirmed that lateral touch gestures (left-to-right) yield the best tactile perception, underscoring the influence of touch direction due to the anisotropy of finger mechanics.