This text is about the nature of touch. The speaker describes active and passive touching and says that the way touch works is complicated. So the answer is: still poorly understood.

SCRIPTS

Scientists distinguish two basic ways in which we receive information from the outside world through the sense of touch: active and passive, or to put it more simply, touching and being touched. Being touched, or passive tactile awareness, includes sensing external pressure and temperature acting on parts of U1e body, and this gives us clues as to the nature of our environment. Active touching is when we explore our surrounding with our hands, feet, mouth, and so on. Because it's difficult to guess what some objects are really like with the eyes alone - for example, their weight, hardness or softness, roughness or smoothness, etc. - touching them gives us a much fuller understanding of the objects around us. Yet, how touch works is very complex and [BEEP].