A recent study from researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London has drawn attention after several international outlets reported that humans might sense objects before making physical contact.
The phenomenon, often called remote touch, has previously been described in shorebirds that locate prey buried beneath sand by reading subtle vibrations.
According to the team, whose findings appear on IEEE Xplore, the human hand may also be capable of picking up faint mechanical signals that travel through loose material before the fingers reach an object.
How the experiment worked
In the experiment, volunteers were asked to search through sand for small cubes without directly touching them.
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The researchers note that participants consistently detected slight disturbances around the hidden objects, performing close to the theoretical limit of human tactile sensitivity.
To benchmark performance, the team also tested a robotic arm equipped with a tactile sensor and machine-learning system.
The robot could register signals at a marginally greater distance but misidentified objects more often.
Human participants, by contrast, were accurate in more than 70 percent of trials.
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The authors suggest that insights from the study could inform technologies designed for low-visibility work, from archaeological surveys to robotic exploration on planetary surfaces.
Not a new sensation
But Sarah McIntyre, an associate professor at Linköping University interviewed by Forskning.no, cautions against treating the findings as a breakthrough.
She points out that people routinely sense forces transmitted through gloves, tools or even the bones in their own hands.
Sarah McIntyre also notes that the concept has deep historical roots: the philosopher René Descartes described a blind person using a cane to perceive their surroundings as early as 1637.
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What matters now, she says, is understanding the underlying mechanism rather than framing the ability as newly discovered.
Sources: Forskning.no, and IEEE Xplore.