UK Researchers Discover Humans Share "Remote Touch" Sense with Shorebirds
- MM24 News Desk
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London and University College London (UCL) have found the first evidence that humans possess a "remote touch" sense—previously observed in shorebirds like sandpipers—that allows detection of buried objects before physical contact.
In groundbreaking experiments, human participants identified concealed objects through sand with nearly twice the success rate of advanced robotic sensors, revealing a shared sensory ability across the animal kingdom.
The study, published in the journal IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), investigated whether the remarkable foraging ability of shorebirds—which detect prey hidden beneath sand without seeing or touching it first—might be more widespread than scientists realized.
"It’s the first time that remote touch has been studied in humans and it changes our conception of the perceptual world in living beings, including humans," said Elisabetta Versace, who leads the Prepared Minds Lab at Queen Mary University.
Researchers designed an experiment that mimicked the conditions shorebirds encounter when hunting. Participants moved their fingers through sand containing a hidden cube, attempting to identify its location before making physical contact.
The key lies in detecting subtle mechanical shifts—tiny changes in pressure and grain displacement as a hand approaches a buried object. This "remote touch" functions through granular media particle interaction, where the medium itself transmits information about concealed objects.
When pitted against a robot equipped with a sophisticated Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) algorithm, human performance proved remarkably superior. For detecting objects within the expected range, humans achieved a 70.7% success rate, stopping within 6.9 cm (2.72 in) with a median proximity of 2.7 cm (1.06 in).
The robotic hand managed only 40% accuracy under the same conditions. This substantial performance gap provides compelling evidence for a sensory capability that transcends traditional touch.
The discovery has significant implications for robotics and assistive technology development. "The discovery opens possibilities for designing tools and assistive technologies that extend human tactile perception," said Zhengqi Chen, a researcher in the Advanced Robotics Lab at Queen Mary.
These insights could lead to robots capable of delicate operations like locating archaeological artefacts without damage or exploring challenging environments such as Martian soil or ocean floors.
What makes this research particularly innovative is the collaborative approach between human psychology and artificial intelligence. "What makes this research especially exciting is how the human and robotic studies informed each other," said Lorenzo Jamone, Associate Professor in Robotics & AI at UCL. "The human experiments guided the robot’s learning approach, and the robot’s performance provided new perspectives for interpreting the human data."
While the study has limitations—including its controlled laboratory setting and the need for further mechanical analysis of sand displacement—it establishes a foundation for understanding this sixth sense across species.
The research team hopes to expand their investigations with larger participant groups and different mediums, potentially uncovering additional sensory capabilities humans share with other animals.
Beyond technological applications, this work fundamentally expands our understanding of human perception. The demonstrated ability to detect objects through pressure changes in granular materials suggests we possess sensory skills we're only beginning to recognize—capabilities that have evolved across species to navigate complex environments. As robotics continues to learn from biological systems, this discovery of shared "remote touch" between humans and shorebirds opens new frontiers in both neuroscience and engineering.
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