No abstract

Lingual vibrotactile thresholds were obtained from 16 adult subjects equally divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental subjects were required to read for 3 min under an auditory masking condition. Control subjects experienced 3 min of silence. Pre-and postexperimental lingual vibrotactile thresholds did not differ significantly between groups. Although this finding differed from previous research, it appeared to be consistent with response characteristics of the neural transducers that were stimulated.

Sensory effects between auditory and vibrotactile stimuli were investigated by obtaining lingual tactile thresholds under four conditions including no masking, 70, 90, and 110 dB SPL of wide-band noise. Obtained thresholds were highly similar, indicating no shifts in tactile sensitivity from auditory interactions. Findings suggest that dorsal lingual mechanoreceptors may function as independent afferent mechanisms.