Adjacent receptive fields may overlap. Which statement best describes this phenomenon?

• A. They never overlap
• B. They always overlap completely
• C. They are identical
• D. Adjacent fields may overlap

Answer: (D)

Touch receptors in the skin don’t map to tiny, perfectly separate patches. Adjacent receptive fields often overlap, so a single touch can activate multiple neighboring receptors. The brain reads the overall pattern of activity across these overlapping fields to pinpoint location, using population coding to achieve fine spatial resolution. That’s why the statement that adjacent fields may overlap is the best description. The other ideas—no overlap, complete overlap, or identical fields—don’t fit because they’d imply unrealistic, uniform, or non-distinct responses that wouldn’t support accurate localization.