A new study shows that our brains are able to identify the location of touch even when it’s not directly on the body. The study shows that we can sense how an object we’re holding comes into contact with something else. Neuroscientist Luke Miller and his colleagues from the University of Lyon in France carried out 400 different tests and involved 16 study participants to hold wooden rods, and asked them to try and decide when two taps on those rods were made in locations close to each other. Neuroscientists observed that the volunteers were surprisingly good at it and were able to recognize two touches nearby 96 percent of the time.