Capture of kinesthesis by a competing cutaneous input

Abstract

In four experiments, blindfolded participants were presented with pairs of stimuli simultaneously, one to each index finger. Participants moved one index finger, which was presented with cutaneous and/or kinesthetic stimuli, and this movement caused a raised line to move underneath the other, stationary index finger in a yoked manner. The stimuli were 180º rotations of each other (e.g., < and >), and thus when a < was traced with the moving finger, it caused a > to be felt at the stationary finger. When asked to report the experience, participants predominantly reported the cutaneous stimulus, seemingly being ignorant of the kinesthetic stimulus. This appears to be an intrahaptic capture phenomenon, which is of interest because it suggests that conflict between intrahaptic sensory stimuli can go unnoticed; sometimes we are unaware of how we moved, and sometimes we do not know what we touched. The results are interpreted in light of optimal integration, perceptual suppression, reafference suppression, and inattentional blindness.

Aging and Curvature Discrimination from Static and Dynamic Touch

“…from immediate contact, when our hands and fingers come into actual physical contact with object surfaces [9]–[11]. This physical contact stimulates slowly- and rapidly-adapting sensory mechanoreceptors within the skin [12]–[14]; the resulting patterns of cutaneous activity eventually produce activation in a variety of areas within the cerebral cortex [15], leading to conscious awareness and perception.…”

Aging and Curvature Discrimination From Static and Dynamic Touch

“…from immediate contact, when our hands and fingers come into actual physical contact with object surfaces [9][10][11]. This physical contact stimulates slowly-and rapidly-adapting sensory mechanoreceptors within the skin [12][13][14]; the resulting patterns of cutaneous activity eventually produce activation in a variety of areas within the cerebral cortex [15], leading to conscious awareness and perception.…”

Defining filled and empty space: reassessing the filled space illusion for active touch and vision

“…For example, Bergmann Tiest et al ( 2011 ) suggested that although observers can perceive and discriminate lengths when only cutaneous cues are present, haptic length perception is primarily based on kinaesthetic information. However, this view has recently been challenged by Van Doorn and colleagues, who have shown that cutaneous cues alone can be used to estimate length (Van Doorn et al 2012a , b , 2013 ). Indeed, they reported that participants were more sensitive to differences in length between stimuli when using cutaneous information alone than when using kinaesthetic information alone.…”

“…In summary, for the filled space illusion in touch (and also, as described later, in vision) experimenters do not seem to have carefully considered the nature of the comparator and a solid surface has often been used as the comparator to represent unfilled space. In touch, the distinction between a solid surface and truly empty space (air) may be particularly important because both cutaneous and kinaesthetic inputs provide length information and these inputs may be processed in different ways (Dupin et al 2015 ; Ebied et al 2003 ; Van Doorn et al 2012a , b , 2013 ). In the present experiments, we investigated whether the nature of the comparator extent (whether a solid surface or empty space) that gratings are compared to influences the filled space illusion.…”