dynamic touch

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Dynamic touch is the perception of an object’s functional possibilities through wielding it and sensing resistance to movement. RB2 attributes the experimental account to Carello, Wagman and Turvey: inertial structure supplies information relevant to how an object can be used. The proposal distinguishes this active mechanical exploration from visual inspection, generic tactile sensation and a claim that every affordance is immediately known.

Explanation

The direct example concerns participants judging tool use through movement and resistance. Length, weight distribution and rigidity matter because they affect possible actions such as pounding or reaching. The local inertia-tensor reference identifies structured mechanical relations, not a newly calculated tensor or an experiment carried out for this assessment.

The next paragraph emphasizes muscular interaction: functional possibilities emerge in relation to the user’s forces and capacities. An object’s visual outline alone consequently does not exhaust the information being explored. This is a specific example of embodied affordance perception rather than evidence that objects possess the same practical opportunities for every possible agent.

The broader learning discussion describes attunement and calibration through practice. Dynamic touch fits that context without making all mechanical contact perceptually successful or eliminating uncertainty. The proposed subentry preserves the study’s reported scope and attribution, while making no quantitative claim about accuracy, neural implementation or universal transfer to unfamiliar tools.

Scope and attribution

Keep reported experimental provenance and invent no mechanical measurements.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Active wielding reveals functionally relevant inertial structure in an attributed experimental account.

Occurrence locators: 74.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Dynamic touch specifically involves active wielding and inertial structure, not all action capacities.