Illusory Sense of Human Touch from a Warm and Soft Artificial Hand
John-John Cabibihan, Deepak Joshi, Yeshwin Mysore Srinivasa, Mark, Aaron Chan, and Arrchana Muruganantham

TL;DR
This study demonstrates that a warm, soft artificial hand can evoke a human-like touch perception, potentially improving prosthetic design and social acceptance for individuals with limb loss.
Contribution
The paper introduces a method to create a lifelike artificial hand that convincingly mimics human touch through specific warmth and softness characteristics.
Findings
Artificial hand with optimal warmth (28.4°C) and softness perceived as human touch.
Artificial hand's softness comparable to human hand based on softness mapping.
Participants often mistook artificial touch for human touch in blind tests.
Abstract
To touch and be touched are vital to human development, well being, and relationships. However, to those who have lost their arms and hands due to accident or war, touching becomes a serious concern that often leads to psychosocial issues and social stigma. In this paper, we demonstrate that the touch from a warm and soft rubber hand can be perceived by another person as if the touch were coming from a human hand. We describe a three step process toward this goal. First, we made participants select artificial skin samples according to their preferred warmth and softness characteristics. At room temperature, the preferred warmth was found to be 28.4 deg C at the skin surface of a soft silicone rubber material that has a Shore durometer value of 30 at the OO scale. Second, we developed a process to create a rubber hand replica of a human hand. To compare the skin softness of a human hand…
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