Abstract
The present study examined whether the locations of patterns on the skin affected the ability to process information about their shapes. In Experiment 1, pairs of spatial vibrotactile patterns, using the array from the Optacon, were presented sequentially to subjects’ left index fingerpads. The location of each pattern in a pair was varied randomly among four locations on the skin. The subjects responded “same” or “different” on the basis of the shapes of patterns, regardless of their locations. Discrimination accuracy was highest and response time fastest when patterns occupied identical locations (ILs), and performance suffered with increasing distance between patterns. In Experiment 2, pairs were presented to corresponding points or to noncorresponding points on separate fingerpads. When patterns occupied corresponding points on separate fingers, accuracy was lower than when patterns occupied ILs on a single finger, but higher than when patterns occupied noncorresponding points on separate fingers. The results suggested that discriminability declined partly because patterns did not occupy ILs, and partly because separate locations had different densities of innervation.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allard, T., &Merzenich, M. M. (1988). Some basic organizational features of the somatosensory nervous system. In W. Von Seelen, G. Shaw, & U. M. Leinhos (Eds.),Organization of neural networks: Structures and models (pp. 267–284). Weinheim, Germany: VCH.
Bamber, D. (1969). Reaction times and error rates for “same-different” judgments of multidimensional stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,6, 169–174.
Bliss, J. C., Katcher, M. H., Rogers, C. H., &Shepard, R. P. (1970). Optical-to-tactile image conversion for the blind.IEEE Transactions on Man-Machine Systems,11, 58–64.
Bliss, J. C., &Linvill, J. G. (1966). A direct translation reading aid: Reading alphabetic shapes tactually. In R. Dufton (Ed.),Proceedings of the international conference on sensory devices for the blind (pp. 389–407). London: Arrowsmith.
Cholewiak, R. W., &Craig, J. C. (1984). Vibrotactile pattern recognition and discrimination at several body sites.Perception & Psychophysics,35, 503–514.
Craig, J. C. (1976). Vibrotactile letter recognition: The effect of a masking stimulus.Perception & Psychophysics,20, 317–326.
Craig, J. C. (1977). Vibrotactile pattern perception: Extraordinary observers.Science,196, 450–452.
Craig, J. C. (1978). Vibrotactile pattern recognition and masking. In G. Gordon (Ed.),Active touch-the mechanism of recognition of objects by manipulation: A multi-disciplinary approach (pp. 229–242). Oxford: Pergamon.
Craig, J. C. (1980). Modes of vibrotactile pattern perception.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,6, 151–166.
Craig, J. C. (1982a). Temporal integration of vibrotactile patterns.Perception & Psychophysics,32, 219–229.
Craig, J. C. (1982b). Vibrotactile masking: A comparison of energy and pattern maskers.Perception & Psychophysics,31, 523–529.
Craig, J. C. (1983a). The role of onset in the perception of sequentially presented vibrotactile patterns.Perception & Psychophysics,34, 421–432.
Craig, J. C. (1983b). Some factors affecting tactile pattern recognition.International Journal of Neuroscience,19, 47–58.
Craig, J. C. (1985a). Attending to two fingers: Two hands are better than one.Perception & Psychophysics,38, 496–511.
Craig, J. C. (1985b). Tactile pattern perception and its perturbations.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,77, 238–246.
Craig, J. C. (1988). The role of experience in tactual pattern perception: A preliminary report.International Journal of Rehabilitation Research,11, 167–171.
Craig, J. C. (1989). Interference in localizing tactile stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,45, 343–355.
Craig, J. C., &Evans, P. M. (1987). Vibrotactile masking and the persistence of tactual features.Perception & Psychophysics,42, 309–317.
Craig, J. C., &Sherrick, C. E. (1982). Dynamic tactile displays. In W. Schiff & E. Foulke (Eds.),Tactual perception: A sourcebook (pp. 209–233). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Elithorn, A., Piercy, M. F., &Crosskey, M. A. (1952). Some mechanisms of tactile localization revealed by a study of leucotomized patients.Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, & Psychiatry,15, 272–282.
Elithorn, A., Piercy, M. F., &Crosskey, M. A. (1953). Tactile localization.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,5, 171–182.
Estes, W. K., Allmeyer, D. H., &Reder, S. M. (1976). Serial position functions for letter identification at brief and extended exposure durations.Perception & Psychophysics,19, 1–15.
Evans, P. M. (1987). Vibrotactile masking: Temporal integration, persistence, and strengths of representations.Perception & Psychophysics,42, 515–525.
Evans, P. M., &Craig, J. C. (1986). Temporal integration and vibrotactile backward masking.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,12, 160–168.
Evans, P. M., &Craig, J. C. (1991). Tactile attention and the perception of moving tactile stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 355–364.
Evans, P. M., Craig, J. C., &Rinker, M. A. (1992). Perceptual processing of adjacent and nonadjacent tactile nontargets.Perception & Psychophysics,52, 571–581.
Foulke, E. (1964). Transfer of a complex perceptual skill.Perceptual & Motor Skills,18, 733–740.
Gardner, E. P., &Palmer, C. I. (1989). Simulation of motion on the skin: I. Receptive fields and temporal frequency coding by cutaneous mechanoreceptors of Optacon pulses delivered to the hand.Journal of Neurophysiology,62, 1410–1436.
Gilson, R. D. (1968). Some factors affecting the spatial discrimination of vibrotactile patterns.Perception & Psychophysics,3, 131–136.
Heller, M. A., Rogers, G. J., &Perry, C. L. (1990). Tactile pattern recognition with the Optacon: Superior performance with active touch and the left hand.Neuropsychologia,28, 1003–1006.
Hermelin, B., &O’Connor, N. (1971). Functional asymmetry in the reading of Braille.Neuropsychologia,9, 431–435.
Hill, J. W. (1974). Limited field of view in reading lettershapes with the fingers. In F. A. Geldard (Ed.),Cutaneous communication systems and devices (pp. 95–105). Austin, TX: Psychonomic Society.
Horner, D. T. (1991). The effects of complexity on the perception of vibrotactile patterns.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 551–562.
Horner, D. T. (1992). The effects of complexity on the perception of vibrotactile patterns presented to separate fingers.Perception & Psychophysics,52, 201–210.
Horner, D. T., &Craig, J. C. (1989). A comparison of discrimination and identification of vibrotactile patterns.Perception & Psychophysics,45, 21–30.
Johansson, R. S., &Vallbo, A. B. (1979). Tactile sensibility in the human hand: Relative and absolute densities of the four types of mechanoreceptive units in glabrous skin.Journal of Physiology,286, 283–300.
Johansson, R. S., &Vallbo, A. B. (1983). Tactile sensory coding in the glabrous skin of the human hand.Trends in Neuroscience,6, 27–32.
Kaas, J. H., Merzenich, M. M., &Killackey, H. P. (1984). The reorganization of somatosensory cortex following peripheral nerve damage in adult and developing mammals.Annual Review of Neuroscience,6, 325–356.
Keuss, P. J. G. (1977). Processing of geometrical dimensions in a binary classification task: Evidence for a dual process model.Perception & Psychophysics,21, 371–376.
Kirman, J. H. (1973). Tactile communication of speech: A review and an analysis.Psychological Bulletin,80, 54–74.
Krueger, L. E. (1973a). Effect of irrelevant surrounding material on speed of same-different judgment of two adjacent letters.Journal of Experimental Psychology,98, 252–259.
Krueger, L. E. (1973b). Effect of stimulus frequency on speed of same-different judgments. In S. Kornblum (Ed.),Attention and performance IV (pp. 497–506). New York: Academic Press.
Krueger, L. E. (1978). A theory of perceptual matching.Psychological Review,85, 278–304.
Lappin, J. S., &Foulke, E. (1973). Expanding the tactual field of view.Perception & Psychophysics,14, 237–241.
Lederman, S. J. (1976). The “callus-thenics” of touching.Canadian Journal of Psychology,30, 82–89.
Loomis, J. M. (1980). Interaction of display mode and character size in vibrotactile letter recognition.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,16, 385–387.
Loomis, J. M. (1981a). Tactile pattern perception.Perception,10, 5–27.
Loomis, J. M. (1981b). On the tangibility of letters and braille.Perception & Psychophysics,29, 37–46.
Loomis, J. M., &Apkarian-Stielau, P. (1976). A lateral masking effect in tactile and blurred visual letter recognition.Perception & Psychophysics,20, 221–226.
Marr, D. (1982).Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Maunsell, J. H. R., &Newsome, W. T. (1987). Visual processing in monkey extrastriate cortex.Annual Review of Neuroscience,10, 363–401.
McFadden, D. (1970). Three computational versions of proportion correct for use in forced-choice experiments.Perception & Psychophysics,8, 336–342.
Merzenich, M. M., Kaas, J. H., Wall, J. T., Nelson, R. J., Sur, M., & Felleman, D. (1983). Topographic reorganization of somatosensory cortical areas 3b and 1 in adult monkeys following restricted deafferentation.Neuroscience,8, 33–55.
Merzenich, M. M., Nelson, R. J., Stryker, M. P., Cynader, M. S., Schoppmann, A., &Zook, J. M. (1984). Somatosensory cortical map changes following digit amputation in adult monkeys.Journal of Comparative Neurology,24, 591–605.
Mishkin, M., Ungerleider, L. G., &Macko, K. A. (1983). Object vision and spatial vision: Two cortical pathways.Trends in Neurosciences,6, 414–417.
Mommers, M. J. C. (1980). Braille reading: Effects of different hand and finger usage.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness,74, 338–343.
Mozer, M. C. (1989). Types and tokens in visual letter perception.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,15, 287–303.
Neisser, U. (1967).Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Nickerson, R. S. (1965). Response times for same-different judgments.Perceptual & Motor Skills,20, 15–18.
Nolan, C. Y., &Kederis, C. J. (1969).Perceptual factors in braille word recognition. New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
Pachella, R. G., &Miller, J. O. (1976). Stimulus probability and same-different classification.Perception & Psychophysics,19, 29–34.
Palmer, C. I., &Gardner, E. P. (1990). Simulation of motion on the skin: IV. Responses of Pacinian corpuscle afferents innervating the primate hand to stripe patterns on the OPTACON.Journal of Neurophysiology,64, 236–247.
Posner, M. I., &Mitchell, R. F. (1967). Chronometric analysis of classification.Psychological Review,74, 392–409.
Proctor, R. W. (1981). A unified theory for matching task phenomena.Psychological Review,88, 291–326.
Reed, C. M., Durlach, N. J., Braida, L. D., &Schultz, M. C. (1982). Analytic study of the Tadoma method: Identification of consonants and vowels by an experienced Tadoma user.Journal of Speech & Hearing Research,25, 108–116.
Rinker, M. A., &Craig, J. C. (1994). The effect of spatial orientation on the perception of moving tactile stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,56, 356–362.
Robinson, J. S., Brown, L. T., &Hayes, W. H. (1964). Test of effects of past experience on perception.Perceptual & Motor Skills,18, 953–956.
Scadden, L. A. (1969). A tactual substitute for sight.New Scientist,41, 677–678.
Scadden, L. A. (1973). Tactile pattern recognition and body loci.Perception,2, 333–336.
Silverman, W. P. (1973). The perception of identity in simultaneously presented complex visual displays.Memory & Cognition,1, 459–466.
Treisman, A., &Gelade, G. (1980). A feature integration theory of attention.Cognitive Psychology,12, 97–136.
Ungerleider, L. G., &Mishkin, M. (1982). Two cortical visual systems. In D. J. Ingle, M. A. Goodale, & R. J. W. Mansfield (Eds.),Analysis of visual behavior (pp. 549–586). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vallbo, A. B., &Johansson, R. S. (1978). The tactile sensory innervation of the glabrous skin of the human hand. In G. Gordon (Ed.),Active touch-the mechanism of recognition of objects by manipulation: A multi-disciplinary approach (pp. 29–54). Oxford: Pergamon.
Vallbo, A. B., &Johansson, R. S. (1984). Properties of cutaneous mechanoreceptors in the human hand related to touch sensation.Human Neurobiology,3, 3–14.
Weinstein, S. (1968). Intensive and extensive aspects of tactile sensitivity as a function of body part, sex, and laterality. In D. R. Kenshalo (Ed.),The skin senses (pp. 195–222). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Weisenberger, J. M. (1981).Tactile pattern similarity. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Weisenberger, J. M., &Craig, J. C. (1982). A tactile metacontrast effect.Perception & Psychophysics,31, 530–536.
White, B. W., Saunders, F. A., Scadden, L., Bach-y-Rita, P., &Collins, C. C. (1970). Seeing with the skin.Perception & Psychophysics,7, 23–27.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by Northeast Missouri State University, by the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and by Grant DC-00095 from the National Institutes of Health.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Horner, D.T. The effect of location on the discrimination of spatial vibrotactile patterns. Perception & Psychophysics 57, 463–474 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213072
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213072