Haptic perception is contingent to hemispaces, not to hands

Abstract

AbsractIt is known that human haptic perception is lateralised, for example, object shape is felt differently according to the hand used to explore objects. Here we show that it is not the hand but the hemispace in which the exploring hand is located that determines differences in perception. This finding implies that our lateralised somatosensory processing depends on hand localisation in space rather than on the hand itself.