E.H. Weber on the tactile senses

The first edition of this book (E.H. Weber: The Sense of Touch, Academic Press, 1978) has long been out of print. But interest in Weber's work continues and this revised edition commemorates the bicentenary of his birth.

The introduction has been expanded to include further information on Weber's life and times, and on recent research relevant to Weber's own work. The translations of Weber's main works of psychological interest (De Tactu and Der Tastsinn und das Gemeingefuhl) contain minor changes, and the footnotes and indexes have been updated.

The reader will find here much more than those topics for which Weber is best known - the two-point threshold, experiments on weight discrimination and a statement of what is now called Weber's Law.

Weber also made interesting remarks on many aspects of sensory psychology - on left-right asymmetry in sensitivity, on visual resolution, the binocular combination of colours, the moon illusion, on summation, inhibition and adaptation in sensory systems, on the difference between simultaneous and successive presentations, on selective attention, the externalisation of sensations and the difference between sensation and perception. As a scientist, Weber was working in the new area of experimental psychology; as a philosopher, he bridged the gap between philosophy and experiment.

His work remains of interest to historians of science, to philosophers and to sensory psychologists.