Lateral Skin Stretch Influences Direction Judgments of Motion Across the Skin

  • Tatjana Seizova-Cajic
  • Kornelia Karlsson
  • Sara Bergstrom
  • Sarah McIntyre
  • Ingvars Birznieks
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 8618)

Abstract

Background: Sliding of surfaces across the skin changes the position of edges and texture elements relative to the receptive fields of somatosensory neurons. This ‘successive positions’ cue is sufficient to elicit motion sensation. Surfaces also create lateral skin stretch due to friction and we ask whether this potential cue influences perceived direction. Method: A 4-pin array was applied to the forearm to manipulate the two motion cues independently. It indicated distal or proximal direction by pin activation in the order 1-2-3-4 or 4-3-2-1. Crucially, each pin also stretched the skin by moving 3.5 mm laterally in the same (Congruent cues) or opposite direction (Incongruent cues). Results: 90 % of motion direction judgments accurately reflected succession of positions with a Congruent skin stretch cue but only 79 % with an Incongruent skin stretch cue (F1,7 = 6.80, p = .035). Conclusion: The skin stretch cue contributes to neural coding of motion direction.

Keywords

Tactile Motion Skin stretch Friction Psychophysics Haptics 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

We thank Timothy Turner and Raymond Patton for designing and making the apparatus, and Juno Kim for the software. This study was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery grant DP110104691 to TSC and IB.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tatjana Seizova-Cajic
    • 1
  • Kornelia Karlsson
    • 2
  • Sara Bergstrom
    • 2
  • Sarah McIntyre
    • 1
  • Ingvars Birznieks
    • 3
    • 4
  1. 1.Faculty of Health SciencesUniversity of SydneySydneyAustralia
  2. 2.Linkoping UniversityLinkopingSweden
  3. 3.School of Medical SciencesUniversity of New South WalesSydneyAustralia
  4. 4.School of Science and HealthUniversity of Western SydneySydneyAustralia

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