The Senses of Touch

I have read half of this book for my thesis. It is useful in that it compiles a lot of information and resources on haptics. However, it is difficult to get through any portion of this book not due to the difficulty of concepts but because the writing is academic in the worst sense of the word. The author constantly quotes and cites other authors to the point that citations visually interrupt the page at every turn, and the author never seems to get to the meat of his argument, instead summing up other authors' arguments, explaining the structure of his book and chapters, and telling the reader what he will write about in the following pages or later in the book (without actually doing it). The book feels like one long introduction that never delves into the subjects presented. Its saving graces are a few morsels of useful or relevant information here and there, mostly in the form of citations from other authors. I really wanted to like this book, but it deserves three stars only for the great compilation of resources in the back and the well-chosen quotations.

A comprehensive & wide-ranging overview of touch--interdisciplinary in scope & method. Paterson weaves together sources from phenomenology, classic philosophy, aesthetics, medicine & human-computer interaction. Essential starting point for anyone interested in touch & haptics.

The Senses of Touch is a most helpful and excellent introduction to the complex field of haptics. In a compact, well written academic language the book not only sums up the history of how we have come to understand touch, but also offers a daring outlook into the future of our senses. It has been very useful and inspiring for my own research and I recommend it as core text book for both academics as well as others wanting to get an overview of the somatosensory field. The many references in the book represent a thorough overview of other relevant textbooks and the book so serves as a springboard into more in-depth studies. One of the many aspects worth mentioning is Paterson's discussion on cross-modal interaction and the interplay of our senses. Here he suggests interesting ways of bridging the gap between different theoretical understandings of touch and practice based applications. An example of this is his inclusion and discussion of how experimental art deals with touch to shape new experiential spaces for our sensorium.