Tastillusies - Systematische fouten in onze waarneming

It is often thought that touch provides us with veridical information about our environment. However, our sense of touch is susceptible to strong but systematic illusions and aftereffects. In this article, we describe some examples from our recent research. The felt size of an object is influenced by what has been touched directly before: if that was small, the current object will be perceived as relatively large. Also material
properties such as texture (roughness), temperature and hardness influence the perception of size: an object with salient properties feels larger. The perception of orientations of objects relative to each other is influenced by the orientation of the perceiving limb. The perceived magnitude of a force depends on its direction: a force perpendicular to the arm feels stronger than a force in line with the arm.