Abstract
Haptics by Lynette A. Jones is a well-written book, describing how we explore our world and process information from our haptic sense. Jones writes in easy to understand language and organizes information in a coherent fashion to cover a breadth of topics within haptics, including definitions, anatomy, and perception, and the use of haptics in displays, communication systems, patient rehabilitation, and robotic contexts.
This book solidified my understanding of haptics and helped me learn new information about the use of haptics in our daily lives and in current research programs. For example, the information contained in Chapter 6 “Tactile Communication Systems” is highly relevant for my research program and was helpful in thinking of various research protocols and findings in a slightly different context. I really enjoyed the quote from Wood Jones (1944) included on page 142 “it is not the hand that is perfect, but the whole nervous mechanism by which movements of the hand are evoked, co-ordinated and controlled.” I will use some of the information from this book in my undergraduate courses and will get copies for my graduate students studying in this area.
For a revised version, it might be helpful to add some further explanation and references. Indeed, the referencing style is different from what I am used to for peer-reviewed articles, and so I found myself looking for references after many statements throughout the book. Perhaps this is a function of the knowledge product type (i.e., a book vs. a journal article), but I think the book would be strengthened and have more validation/support with more frequent referencing (e.g., page 26—“Muscle spindle density appears to depend more on the size of the muscle than its function” or page 134 “Measurements made of the friction force … reduce by up to 95%”).
Also, statements such as the use of haptic information “…seems particularly promising for athletes and fitness trainers” (page 159) seem limiting, as they do not convey the possible use of haptic rehabilitation tools in clinical populations (who are not served by athletes or fitness trainers). There is a large body of evidence to support the use of haptics in rehabilitation contexts, and I felt that the aforementioned statement could be easily modified to acknowledge the impact of such rehabilitation strategies. In addition, there is growing evidence about the effect of added haptic input on balance control which can add to our understanding of how haptic input is used by the central nervous system. Finally, there was no information about how we use haptic sensation from our feet which I think would generate a more complete understanding of the topic.
Other opportunities for further explanation were, for example, the lacking description of the function of the median nerve and nerve fascicle (p. 18); what we know about how the central nervous system can compute the position and movements of various joints; the meaning of veridicality; more complete explanations of figures; or more examples of robotic use in real life (Chapter 8).
Overall, I think that this is a great introductory book for anyone to better understand haptics and how humans physically interact with our world.