Active Touching and Passive Touching - Essay Example

Factorial study [Insert al Affiliation] The concepts of active and passive touch have recently elicited heated debate asto whether they give the same perception and whether the sense of touch should be considered to be a wholly different sense from the common senses. Behavioral psychologists have been accentuating the significance of what is commonly called ‘feedback’ from self-produced stimulation, responses and overall proprioception. Apparently, they identify that the inputs are necessary for steering and purposive control of behavior but have failed to realize that some of the information produced by responses yields both subjective and objective stimulation. Psychologists have taken an inordinate effort to experiment on whether touch can enable an individual to perceive and deduce the many properties of an object in totality. Disparagingly, some psychologists have disregarded the sense of touch and have ended up perceiving it as merely a combination of skin senses composed of cutaneous sensitivity and as a receptive and passive channel. Introduction In the field of sensory psychology, sense of touch is broadly classified into active touching and passive touching. Active touch is ordinarily termed as touching and the impression on the skin is generated by the perceiver. Passive touch, on the other hand, refers to being touched and the impression on the skin is caused by outside agency. Rather than being a merely performatory or receptive sense, active touch is exploratory or tactile scanning since when one touches an object, various stimulations are produced by the disparity in their motor activity (Révész, 1950). The perception or stimuli generated is purely dependent on the movement of fingers and this movement is purely equated to movement of the eye. Additionally, active touch, even in the absence of vision, enables the individual to perceive many properties of the surrounding environment and this is basically utilized by the blind in reconnoitering their environment. The classical modalities of touch and kinesthesis do not establish a profound understanding of the sense of active touch and Révész went ahead to observe haptics in an effort to understand active touching. However, there has been little research on the issue of active touch as many psychologists perceive it as not fitting in what they universally categorize as a sense (Révész, 1950). Additionally, many psychologists seem to perceive active touch as a blend of two sensations; touch proper and kinesthesis denoting that it syndicates data from the feeling of contact and the feeling of movement which are later fused into a single experience. This ignores the findings by other researchers as it fails to consider the multiplicity of kinesthesis and the purposive character of touching (Gibson, 1962). While the results over the idea of active and passive touch are inconclusive, many researchers tend to agree that active touching enables an individual to obtain a better scan of the environment. This study shall seek to evaluate whether distraction has an effect on the accuracy of sense of touch as largely hypothesized by some psychologists that distraction causes extreme agitation of the mind or emotions and may thus result into hysteria, mania or frenzy. The experiment will involve classmates who will be asked to identify cookie cutters when their sense of vision is obstructed. Additionally, to further understand the relationship between touch , distraction and accuracy, podcasts and headphones shall be utilized in determining the precision of the identifier and how far their perception is affected by distraction. Wolfe (2006) hypothesizes that distraction affects an individuals of sense of touch and the accuracy of identification in the absence if the sense of vision is largely impeded, a hypothesis that contradicts that by Solso (1997) who found out that distraction has a statistically insignificant effect of the individual’s precision in identifying objects purely through the use of the sense of touch. Method In the experiment, we divided the three variables touch type, distraction and correct number of cookie cutters into independent variable one (IV 1), independent variable two (IV 2) and dependent variable respectively. To start with, we identified a group of 24 undergraduates and immediately excluded their vision by having the observers put their hands under a table which was also covered with a table cloth. This was the best way of excluding their vision since operating in darkness would have eliminated the possibility of observing the observers’ manual activity which was quite imperative in the experiment. Thereafter, 5 cookie cutters of different shapes were brought and the experimenter asked the observers to identify the shape of the object first by touching the cookie cutters and secondly by placing the cookie cutters on their hands. The cookie cutters were presented to the observer randomly to exclude any biasness in presentation of objects which could possibly affect the accuracy of identification. The cookie cutters were presented by following the results generated by the random.org/list (https://www.random.org/lists/). After identification, the experimenter marginally distracted the observer by using podcasts and headphones that slightly distracted the observer’s mental harmony to see whether they will correctly identify the cookie cutters. The identification was then recorded in an identification sheet. Noteworthy, the identification of the cookie cutters when the cookie cutter was placed on the observer’s hands (passive touch) was recorded differently from when the observers touched the cookie cutters (active touch). Results: From the experiment, it was observed that when a cookie cutter of any shape is placed on the observer’s hand or the observer places their hand on the cookie cutter, they tend to bring their other hand to the object. When allowed to touch the cookie cutters, the observers tended to strongly curve their fingers around them. Movement of the fingers was in complex ways including tracing movements with one or several fingertips, grasping, rubbing and pressing the cookie cutter with their fingers. After several movements of the fingers, the observer would eventually strive to identify the object by naming it or by comparing it with other familiar objects with the same texture or shape. Interestingly, while the observers paid attention to the distraction caused by podcasts and headphones, their manual activity could still enable them identify the various cookie cutters with precision and accuracy. Apparently, their identification was unimpeded by the introduction of distraction. However, when the object was placed on the observer’s hands and the observer restricted to manually explore the object by use of their fingers, their identification was different and in most cases inaccurate. Noteworthy, when the observers were allowed to fully interact with the object their identification of the cookie cutters was correct unlike when their manual interaction with the cookie cutters was limited or constraint. Discussion The observers tend to move their hands across the cookie cutters in an effort to obtain mechanical events at the skin in several positions and in varying mishmashes. If we perceive the hand to be a sense organ, the observers were striving to adjust it in order to obtain a better perception and deduce a precise identification. Apparently, the differences in perception between active touch and passive touch are evident and active touch is more effective in perception as it combines various environmental elements unlike passive touch which enables the observer to identifier the object using limited factors that are imposed on him by the object itself. Distraction had no effect on sense type and had no influence on the exactitude of the observer’s identification facts that are candidly in line with those by Crisp & Turner (2010) who investigated the effect of distraction on sensory memory. Sensory memory functions as a cushion for inducements received via the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing by automatically storing information perceived by the various senses. The stimuli identified by the senses can either be consciously ignored or perceived. Even in the absence of iconic memory and echoic memory, heptic memory may still enable an individual to correctly identify an object with ease since touch, as a sense, and particularly active touch seem to have no correlation with any kind of distraction (Gibson, 1962). While many researchers agree that information from the sensory memory is conveyed to the immediate memory through synapses which are closely linked to amygdala and hippocampus largely depend on attention, our findings indicate that sense of touch is not affected by any factor that distracts an individual’s attention (Gibson, 1962). Indeed, an individual can selectively concentrate on one aspect of the environment while ignoring the stimuli that are not of concern to them, in this case, the stimuli caused by the podcast or headphones. The outcomes are correspond with those from Crisp & Turner (2010), which indicate that edges, corners and other protrusions of a bizarre object being felt enables an individual to distinguish the patterns made to one another but the individual cannot distinguish the various forms that are made by the cutaneous pressures, a fact that is particularly attributed to the sheer fact that an individual perceives the object-form and not the skin-form. Passive touch and active touch arouse different experiences but the experiences produced are not affected by distraction. Apparently, sensory impressions are better created by the experimenter since when they are brought about by the observer, they seem to disappear (Gibson, 1962). Additionally, all perception created by the different fingers combine into one single stimuli and experience, and the individual can easily construe the stimuli without any muddle. This entire scenario is popularly termed as the unity of phenomenal object. However, this unity is limited as detected in Aristotle’s illusion when holding a pencil between crossed fingers and difference perceptions seemed to occur (Gibson, 1962). This is still a subject of discussion and necessitates further researcher to establish concrete underlying facts. Apparently, the ability to control vision and the extent of the observer’s interaction with the cookie cutter stands out as important strengths of the current study as it enabled the experiment to be conducted in a completely controlled environment (Gibson, 1962). Additionally, use of the random number generator to determine the order in which the cookie cutters are presented to the observer enabled the study to be free from any kind of preconception. However, the certainty of whether the distraction distorted the observers’ mind in anyway during the experiment present a potential weakness of the study since the observers might have identified the cookie cutters correctly but their mental cognition was still perplexed. Future researchers should clearly explain the active touch and passive touch in more details as this can potentially affect the results. Moreover, they should investigate the extent to which distraction and the accuracy provided by the sense of touch are not interrelated. This will provide an immaculate understanding of the concept of touch and enable them formulate concrete conclusions that can deepen the understanding of psychology scholars. However, as per this study distraction has no effect on accuracy of identification through the sense of touch but type of touch, whether active touch or passive touch, affects the accuracy of identification. References Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2010). Essential social psychology. Los Angeles: SAGE. Gibson, J. J. (1962). Observations on active touch. Psychological Review, 69(6), 477-489. doi:10.1037/h0046962 Révész, G. (1950). Psychology and art of the blind. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Solso, R. L. (1997). Mind and brain sciences in the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wolfe, J. M. (2006). Sensation & perception. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates. Read More