What is active touch?

Abstract What is active touch? A common conception of active touch gives a rough but rather intuitive sketch. That is, active touch can be understood as mainly object-oriented, controlled movement. While parts or the totality of this characterization is espoused by an important number of researchers on touch, I will argue that this conception faces important challenges when we pay close attention to each of its features. I hold that active touch should be considered as before all else purposive. This view has its roots in the active sensing literature in robotics but will be amended to give insight into human touch in the natural world.