Tactile Sensation of Humans: —Mechanical Dynamics, Analogy and Illusion—@@@—力学·アナロジー·錯覚という視点から—

Topics on tactile sensation of humans are described from the mechanical, analogical and illusional points of view. First, tactile sensation of human finger is described from a physiological and mechanical point of view. It is shown that there are four types of mechanoreceptors and they share frequency band of stimulus. It is also shown that three mechanical non-linearity of skin are important for transforming stimulus at the surface of the skin to the mechanoreceptors. They are non-linearity due to material property, large deformation and contact. Next, analogy and sensor fusion among tactile, visual and auditory sensation are focused on in relation to an illusion. It is shown that tactile sense is detected by transforming space information to vibration information whereas visual sense detects space information directly. Analogy of different sensation is also discussed including stroboscopic motion, phantom sensation and masking. At last, sensor fusion among different sensation is described.