Electrocutaneous stimulation: Psychometric functions and temporal integration

Psychometric functions and psychophysical strength-duration curves were obtained with rectangular electro-cutaneous pulses. The slopes of the psychometric functions were much steeper than corresponding functions in other modalities, with the standard deviation of the distribution only about 0.08 times the threshold. Precise monitoring of stimulus current showed that physiological rather than physical variability was involved. Psychophysical strength-duration curves support the contention that large A-fibers are directly stimulated. Data from this study. as well as from comparable I × t experiments in other senses, are well-fit throughout the range of durations by rectangular hyperbolas. The period over which complete temporal summation occurs is only about 0.5 msec.

[1]  R. Clark Jones,et al.  Three Mechanisms of Hearing by Electrical Stimulation , 1939 .

[2]  J. Zwislocki.  Theory of Temporal Auditory Summation , 1960 .

[3]  T. Cornsweet,et al.  The staircrase-method in psychophysics. , 1962, The American journal of psychology.

[4]  Charles Pecher,et al.  La Fluctuation D'excitabilité de la Fibre Nerveuse , 1939 .

[5]  R. T. Verrillo.  TEMPORAL SUMMATION IN VIBROTACTILE SENSITIVITY. , 1965, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[6]  H. K. Hartline,et al.  Intensity and duration in the excitation of single photoreceptor units , 1934 .

[7]  S. S. Stevens.  Tactile vibration: Change of exponent with frequency , 1968 .

[8]  W. R. Garner,et al.  The masked threshold of pure tones as a function of duration. , 1947, Journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  R. T. Green.  The absolute threshold of electric shock. , 1962 .

[10]  Cutaneous sensitivity to electrical pulse stimuli. , 1958, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[11]  S. Hecht,et al.  ENERGY, QUANTA, AND VISION , 1942, The Journal of general physiology.

[12]  M. Brazier.  The Electrical Activity of the Nervous System , 1961, Science.

[13]  S. S. Stevens.  The Psychophysics of Sensory Function. , 1960 .

[14]  H. W. Karn.  Area and the Intensity-Time Relation in the Fovea , 1936 .

[15]  J. Hahn,et al.  Cutaneous vibratory thresholds for square-wave electrical pulses. , 1958, Science.

[16]  M A BOUMAN,et al.  The two-quanta explanation of the dependence of the threshold values and visual acuity on the visual angle and the time of observation. , 1947, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[17]  E. Schmid,et al.  Temporal aspects of cutaneous interaction with two-point electrical stimulation. , 1961, Journal of experimental psychology.

[18]  B. Rosner,et al.  Electrical responses of the nervous system and subjective scales of intensity. , 1967, Contributions to sensory physiology.

[19]  G. B. Wetherill,et al.  SEQUENTIAL ESTIMATION OF POINTS ON A PSYCHOMETRIC FUNCTION. , 1965, The British journal of mathematical and statistical psychology.

[20]  H R BLACKWELL,et al.  Neural theories of simple visual discriminations. , 1963, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[21]  D. M. Green,et al.  Psychoacoustics and Detection Theory , 1960 .

[22]  B. Tursky,et al.  On the. Psychophysical power function in electric shock , 1964 .

[23]  E. Lamar,et al.  Quanta and Vision , 1948 .