The sense of touch is a combination of many different senses. For example, our skin has receptors for pressure, coldness and warmth. There are cells in the joints and tendons that sense stretching. With the help of the first three senses, we get information about our environment and are able to react to it. With cells that perceive stretching, we get information about our own body and the positions of our own limbs.

Pressure-responsive receptors are located near the surface of the skin. They help us to sense touch. Most of these receptors are on the fingertips and lips, whereas the back has only a few of them. Indeed, human fingers are particularly advanced. With the sense of touch, we can do a lot of things with our hands without looking at what we are doing.

The skin also has warm and cold receptors. By sensing changes in temperature in the environment, a person not only protects themselves, but can also regulate their bodily functions. Like other warm-blooded mammals, humans must produce more heat than is evaporated from their bodies when the air outside grows colder. In order for this kind of thermal control to work, we need constant information about changes in the temperature around us.

The sense of touch allows for many functions without the sense of sight. For example, you can type on a computer keyboard even if you cannot see your fingers at all. When doing so, the receptors that sense the stretching of your finger joints tell your brain what positions the fingers are in. By using your memory, the fingers receive information about where they should be in order to find certain letters on the keyboard. In turn, the receptors that sense pressure on the skin tell your brain when you have pressed the keys firmly enough.

In braille lettering, the dots that appear as an embossing form their own alphabet. The height of the dots is about half a millimeter of the rest of the surface of the paper. For a long time, the braille alphabet was the only way for blind people to read texts by themselves. Today, computers also have immersive readers that read the text on the screen aloud. 


The layers of skin.