Haptic perception: critical tests of the inertia tensor hypothesis

In recent years, alarge number of experimental studies on haptic perception, that is, the perception of object properties by means of touching, wielding and holding, have been published that were conducted from the perspective of ecological psychology. Collectively, these studies present and support the hypothesis that haptic perception is based on the properties (eigenvalues and eigenvectors) of the inertia tensor (an objects 3-dimensional resistance against rotation about a given point). However, arguably due to the strong epistemological underpinnings of the ecological approach, few attempts have been made at falsifying the inertia tensor hypothesis. Furthermore, in most studies, the occurence of confounding co-variation in other possibly relevant variables such as mass and static moment was not properly controlled for, even though it follows from mechanical considerations that these variables are likely to play a role in haptic perception as well. The goal