A new study has found that humans have a good ability to detect objects buried in sand without touching them, a new sense dubbed “remote touch.”
After several investigations have already dubbed interoception as the “sixth sense” of humans, new research has identified what could be described as a “seventh sense” in humans, an ability called “remote tattoo”, which allows people to detect objects buried in granular materials, such as sand, without physically touching them.
The discovery, in IEEE Xplore and presented at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), could reshape how we think about sensory experience.
Led by Elisabetta Versacesenior professor of Psychology and responsible for the Prepared Minds Laboratory, the study is the first to demonstrate this sensory capacity in humans.
Remote touch had already been observed in certain species of birds which detect prey under the sand or soil through subtle signals of pressure and vibration, explains .
In the first phase of the research, volunteers were asked to locate objects hidden in the sand using only their fingertips.
Surprisingly, study participants were successful in about 70% of the timeeven when the objects were located up to seven centimeters away, far beyond the physical limits expected for tactile perception. “This changes our conception of the perceptual world,” says Versace.
The phenomenon appears to depend on minimal mechanical disturbances in the surrounding sand. According to the team’s theoretical modeling, tactile signals should dissipate in just one millimeter. However, participants consistently detected much more distant objects. This paradox suggests that human touch can be more sensitive and complex than previously thought.
The discovery could have far-reaching applications, from archeology and planetary exploration to robotic sensors and supporting technologies.
“Being able to detect buried or hidden objects without contact can make exploration of fragile environments or dangerous ones much safer”, explained the doctoral researcher Zhengqi Chenfrom the Advanced Robotics Laboratory.
To test possible robotic uses, researchers replicated the experiment using a tactile robotic sensor trained with an AI-based Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) algorithm.
Although the robot achieved a lowest accuracy rate (40%)detected objects at slightly greater distances than humans.
Ultimately, understanding this new form of perception could lead to robots capable of performing delicate operations in areas where vision and direct touch fail.
