Vibrotactile Spatial Acuity on the Torso: Effects of Location and Timing Parameters

The processing of spatio-temporal vibrotactile patterns by the torso was examined in two experiments. The first investigated the spatial acuity as function of location on the torso. A uniform acuity between 2 and 3 cm was found, except on the body midline where acuity was about 1 cm. This favorable effect was hypothesized to be caused by specific processing characteristics of the central nervous system. The second experiment focused on the effect of timing parameters in a localization task. The results indicated that localization performance was closely related to both temporal ordering and apparent motion. The results can be used to optimize torso display design and the patterns presented on those displays. Also, they demonstrate that even the most advanced displays have not reached the borders of the processing capacities of the torso.

[1]  J. V. Van Erp,et al.  Touch down: the effect of artificial touch cues on orientation in microgravity. , 2006, Neuroscience letters.

[2]  A. A. Collins,et al.  Vibrotactile localization on the arm: Effects of place, space, and age , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[3]  F. A. Geldard,et al.  The Cutaneous "Rabbit": A Perceptual Illusion , 1972, Science.

[4]  J.B.F. van Erp,et al.  Vibrotactile waypoint navigation at sea and in the air : two case studies , 2004 .

[5]  R. Cholewiak space, and time , 1999 .

[6]  M B Jones,et al.  Size Discrimination on the Skin , 1969, Science.

[7]  R. Cholewiak,et al.  Vibrotactile localization on the abdomen: Effects of place and space , 2004, Perception & psychophysics.

[8]  E Borg,et al.  Vibratory-coded directional analysis: evaluation of a three-microphone/four-vibrator DSP system. , 2001, Journal of rehabilitation research and development.

[9]  F. J. Clark,et al.  A metric for assessing acuity in positioning joints and limbs , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[10]  J C Craig,et al.  Vibrotactile pattern perception: extraordinary observers. , 1977, Science.

[11]  T Dobbins,et al.  The Use of Tactile Navigation Cues In High-Speed Craft Operations , 2003 .

[12]  F A Geldard,et al.  Saltation in somesthesis. , 1982, Psychological bulletin.

[13]  Hong Z. Tan,et al.  Using spatial vibrotactile cues to direct visual attention in driving scenes , 2005 .

[14]  Lynette A. Jones,et al.  Development of a tactile vest , 2004, 12th International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2004. HAPTICS '04. Proceedings..

[15]  Carl E. Sherrick,et al.  Bilateral apparent haptic movement , 1968 .

[16]  S Weinstein,et al.  Intensive and extensive aspects of tactile sensitivity as a function of body part, sex, and laterality , 1968 .

[17]  Jan B F van Erp,et al.  Vibro-Tactile and Visual Asynchronies: Sensitivity and Consistency , 2004, Perception.

[18]  J. V. Van Erp,et al.  Presenting directions with a vibrotactile torso display , 2005, Ergonomics.

[19]  M B Jones,et al.  Length discrimination on the skin. , 1973, The American journal of psychology.

[20]  H. Helson THE TAU EFFECT--AN EXAMPLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RELATIVITY. , 1931, Science.

[21]  A. Wilska On the vibrational sensitivity in different regions of the body surface. , 1954, Acta physiologica Scandinavica.

[22]  J. Kirman,et al.  Tactile apparent movement: The effects of interstimulus onset interval and stimulus duration , 1974 .

[23]  R. Johansson,et al.  Spatial properties of the population of mechanoreceptive units in the glabrous skin of the human hand , 1980, Brain Research.

[24]  G. A. Miller THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW THE MAGICAL NUMBER SEVEN, PLUS OR MINUS TWO: SOME LIMITS ON OUR CAPACITY FOR PROCESSING INFORMATION 1 , 1956 .

[25]  P. Barbaresi,et al.  The callosal connections of the primary somatosensory cortex and the neural bases of midline fusion , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[26]  A. A. Collins,et al.  The localization of low- and high-frequency vibrotactile stimuli. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[27]  James C. Bliss,et al.  Modeling a tactile sensory register , 1968 .

[28]  Y. Iwamura,et al.  REPRESENTATION OF TACTILE FUNCTIONS IN THE SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX , 1998 .

[29]  Angus H. Rupert,et al.  The use of a tactile interface to convey position and motion perceptions , 1994 .

[30]  P B Brown,et al.  Two-point discriminability: relation to properties of the somatosensory system. , 1984, Somatosensory research.

[31]  Ernst Heinrich Weber,et al.  De pulsu, resorptione, auditu et tactu. Annotationes anatomicae et physiologicae , 1834 .

[32]  Walter Blumenfeld,et al.  The relationship between the optical and haptic construction of space , 1937 .

[33]  Eric L Groen,et al.  Vestibulo-tactile interactions regarding motion perception and eye movements in yaw. , 2005, Journal of vestibular research : equilibrium & orientation.

[34]  James C. Bliss,et al.  Perception of sequentially presented tactile point stimuli , 1968 .

[35]  K O Johnson,et al.  Neural mechanisms of spatial tactile discrimination: neural patterns evoked by braille‐like dot patterns in the monkey. , 1981, The Journal of physiology.

[36]  Carl E. Sherrick,et al.  Apparent haptic movement , 1966 .

[37]  Koji Tsukada,et al.  ActiveBelt: Belt-Type Wearable Tactile Display for Directional Navigation , 2004, UbiComp.

[38]  A H Rupert An instrumentation solution for reducing spatial disorientation mishaps. , 2000, IEEE engineering in medicine and biology magazine : the quarterly magazine of the Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society.

[39]  P. Bach-y-Rita,et al.  Sensory substitution and the human–machine interface , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[40]  K O Johnson,et al.  Tactile spatial resolution. I. Two-point discrimination, gap detection, grating resolution, and letter recognition. , 1981, Journal of neurophysiology.

[41]  Jan B. F. van Erp,et al.  Presenting directions with a vibrotactile torso display. , 2005 .

[42]  M. Fabri,et al.  Bilateral receptive fields and callosal connectivity of the body midline representation in the first somatosensory area of primates. , 1986, Somatosensory research.

[43]  J. Loomis,et al.  Sensitivity to shifts of a point stimulus: An instance of tactile hyperacuity , 1978, Perception & psychophysics.

[44]  C K Adams,et al.  Two-point threshold as a function of position in the dermatome. , 1966, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[45]  Hendrik A. H. C. van Veen,et al.  Waypoint navigation with a vibrotactile waist belt , 2005, TAP.

[46]  B L Whitsel,et al.  Body representation in ventrobasal thalamus of macaque: a single-unit analysis. , 1977, Journal of neurophysiology.

[47]  A. Veltman,et al.  A Tactile Cockpit Instrument to Support Altitude Control , 2003 .

[48]  J. Craig,et al.  Temporal order and tactile patterns , 1990, Perception & psychophysics.

[49]  Astrid M L Kappers,et al.  Haptic Perception of Spatial Relations , 1999, Perception.

[50]  P. B. Schmidt,et al.  Vibrotactile display coding for a balance prosthesis , 2003, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

[51]  Michael Scott,et al.  Effect of cognitive load on tactor location identification in zero-g , 2005, First Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. World Haptics Conference.