This book reviews the sensory and motor aspects of normal hand function from both neurophysiological and behavioral perspectives. Hand function is presented as a continuum ranging from activities that are essentially sensory in nature to those that have a strong motor component. Four functional categories are delineated along this sensorimotor continuum: tactile sensing, active haptic sensing, prehension, and non-prehensile skilled movements. The continuum is used as a conceptual framework for analyzing and synthesizing a broad range of studies that pertain to normal human hand function. The b ... More

This book reviews the sensory and motor aspects of normal hand function from both neurophysiological and behavioral perspectives. Hand function is presented as a continuum ranging from activities that are essentially sensory in nature to those that have a strong motor component. Four functional categories are delineated along this sensorimotor continuum: tactile sensing, active haptic sensing, prehension, and non-prehensile skilled movements. The continuum is used as a conceptual framework for analyzing and synthesizing a broad range of studies that pertain to normal human hand function. The book begins with a historical overview of research on the hand and a discussion of the evolutionary development of the anatomical structure of the hand. In subsequent chapters, research pertaining to the four categories is reviewed, e.g., intensive, spatial, temporal, and thermal sensitivity of the hand, role of hand movements in recognizing common objects, control of reaching and grasping movements, and organization of keyboard skills. The book examines how sensory and motor function develops in the hand from birth to old age, and how the specific end effector(s) used to interact with the environment influences the nature of the information obtained and task performance. It closes with an assessment of how basic research on the hand has contributed to an array of applied domains, including communication systems for the blind, haptic interfaces for teleoperation and virtual-environment applications, tests for assessing hand impairments, and haptic art.