[Recent Developments in the Field of Material Perception: Why is Shitsukan Important?]

Shitsukan (material perception) is a cognitive function to infer the material and surface conditions of objects based on sensory information. We can obtain biologically important information on objects through Shitsukan. Shitsukan is also closely associated with preference and emotion toward objects. To understand the mechanisms of Shitsukan, understanding the physical properties of the objects, sensory features generated from the objects, and neural processing in the brain are all important, and interdisciplinary collaborations across engineering science, psychophysics, and brain science is critically important.