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The Coding of Direction of Tactile Stimulus Movement: Correlative Psychophysical and Electrophysiological Data

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Sensory Functions of the Skin of Humans

Abstract

Recently published psychophysical studies have shown that the capacity of human subjects to identify direction of tactile stimuli that move in a linear path across the thenar eminence and the upper arm is a function of velocity, of the distance traversed by the moving stimulus (“traverse length”) and of the cutaneous innervation density (Dreyer, Hollins, and Whitsel, 1976; Dreyer, Duncan, and Wong, 1978a; Dreyer, Hollins, and Whitsel, 1978b). Moreover, a subject’s capacity to identify direction of linear movement on either the hairy or glabrous skin is independent of the orientation of the stimulus path (Whitsel and Dreyer, unpublished observations).

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© 1979 Plenum Press, New York

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Whitsel, B.L., Dreyer, D.A., Hollins, M., Young, M.G. (1979). The Coding of Direction of Tactile Stimulus Movement: Correlative Psychophysical and Electrophysiological Data. In: Kenshalo, D.R. (eds) Sensory Functions of the Skin of Humans. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3039-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3039-4_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-3041-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-3039-4

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