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eLife Assessment This useful study integrates experimental methods from materials science with psychophysical methods to investigate how frictional stabilities influence tactile surface discrimination. The authors argue that force fluctuations arising from transitions between frictional sliding conditions facilitate the discrimination of surfaces with similar friction coefficients.

Abstract Fine touch perception is often correlated to material properties and friction coefficients, but the inherent variability of human motion has led to low correlations and contradictory findings. Instead, we hypothesized that humans use frictional instabilities to discriminate between objects.

Abstract From navigating a crowded hallway to skiing down a treacherous hill, humans are constantly making decisions while moving. Insightful past work has provided a glimpse of decision deliberation at the moment of movement onset. Yet it is unknown whether ongoing deliberation can be expressed during movement, following movement onset and prior to any decision.