Human Spatial Navigation via a Visuo-Tactile Sensory Substitution System

Segond, Hervé; Weiß, Deborah; Sampaio, Eliana

doi:10.1068/p3409

Cited by 71 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Perhaps with long-term use of microstimulation, the sensation that it evoked became more vivid. In support of this suggestion, use of a tactile stimulation as a channel for artificial vision was reported to allow subjects to develop qualitatively new perceptions (Bach-y-Rita, 1983;Segond et al, 2005).…”

Section: Does Microstimulation Evoke Perception?mentioning

confidence: 89%

Primate Reaching Cued by Multichannel Spatiotemporal Cortical Microstimulation

Fitzsimmons¹,

Drake²,

Hanson³

et al. 2007

J. Neurosci.

144

129

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Both humans and animals can discriminate signals delivered to sensory areas of their brains using electrical microstimulation. This opens the possibility of creating an artificial sensory channel that could be implemented in neuroprosthetic devices. Although microstimulation delivered through multiple implanted electrodes could be beneficial for this purpose, appropriate microstimulation protocols have not been developed. Here, we report a series of experiments in which owl monkeys performed reaching movements guided by spatiotemporal patterns of cortical microstimulation delivered to primary somatosensory cortex through chronically implanted multielectrode arrays. The monkeys learned to discriminate microstimulation patterns, and their ability to learn new patterns and new behavioral rules improved during several months of testing. Significantly, information was conveyed to the brain through the interplay of microstimulation patterns delivered to multiple electrodes and the temporal order in which these electrodes were stimulated. This suggests multichannel microstimulation as a viable means of sensorizing neural prostheses.

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Section: Does Microstimulation Evoke Perception?mentioning

confidence: 89%

Primate Reaching Cued by Multichannel Spatiotemporal Cortical Microstimulation

Fitzsimmons¹,

Drake²,

Hanson³

et al. 2007

J. Neurosci.

144

129

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“…In haptic perception, a possibly related phenomenon is the recent observation that synchronized sensations at multiple fingers can be perceptually collapsed into the percept of a single object (52). The haptic interfaces in many sensory-substitution devices supply sensory feedback to a different part of the body from the one driving the camera and receiving kinesthetic signals, and therefore tacitly rely on movement signal transfer (53)(54)(55)(56). Consequently, the signal transfer that we have documented in this study is of both fundamental and applied interest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct coupling of haptic signals between hands

Dupin

Hayward

Wexler

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Although motor actions can profoundly affect the perceptual interpretation of sensory inputs, it is not known whether the combination of sensory and movement signals occurs only for sensory surfaces undergoing movement or whether it is a more general phenomenon. In the haptic modality, the independent movement of multiple sensory surfaces poses a challenge to the nervous system when combining the tactile and kinesthetic signals into a coherent percept. When exploring a stationary object, the tactile and kinesthetic signals come from the same hand. Here we probe the internal structure of haptic combination by directing the two signal streams to separate hands: one hand moves but receives no tactile stimulation, while the other hand feels the consequences of the first hand's movement but remains still. We find that both discrete and continuous tactile and kinesthetic signals are combined as if they came from the same hand. This combination proceeds by direct coupling or transfer of the kinesthetic signal from the moving to the feeling hand, rather than assuming the displacement of a mediating object. The combination of signals is due to perception rather than inference, because a small temporal offset between the signals significantly degrades performance. These results suggest that the brain simplifies the complex coordinate transformation task of remapping sensory inputs to take into account the movements of multiple body parts in haptic perception, and they show that the effects of action are not limited to moving sensors.touch | haptics | perception | sensorimotor integration | kinesthesis M otor and kinesthetic signals arising from the movement of the eyes in the head, and translation of the eyes and ears in space due to head and body movements, have been shown to play an important role in visual (1-3) and auditory (4-6) perception. However, because of the small number of sensory surfaces in these modalities, and the rigid constraints on their movement, the number of kinesthetic degrees of freedom is limited. In active touch or the haptic modality (7-13), the large number of sensory surfaces, and the nearly unlimited ways these surfaces can move, lead to the question of how movement can be represented and associated with the cutaneous or tactile signals. To study how tactile and kinesthetic cues are combined to haptically perceive object shape and size, we created a novel haptic stimulus in which these cues were completely dissociated. This stimulus consisted of simulated triangles felt through a narrow slit, as in anorthoscopic perception in vision (14-16) or haptic perception (17), and as illustrated in Fig.

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“…By contrast, only expert and well-trained users could identify common objects or faces (e.g., Bach-y-Rita, 1972; see also Bach-y-Rita, 1974, for the report of certain expert users being able to perform electronic assembly under a microscope using TVSS). The poor spatial resolution of the skin surface (as compared to the retina), however, prevented the TVSS from being used successfully for tasks such as the exploration of visual environments or navigation (though see Segond & Weiss, 2005, for a recent attempt to use a TVSS device to facilitate spatial navigation). Only one of the TVSS devices survived over the years and obtained a relatively large commercial and applied success: the "Optacon" developed by Bliss, Katcher, Rogers, and Shepard (1970).…”

Section: Low-level Limitations On Tactile Information Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Body Surface as a Communication System: The State of the Art after 50 Years

Gallace

Tan

Spence

2007

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

106

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The suggestion that the body surface might be used as an additional means of presenting information to human-machine operators has been around in the literature for nearly 50 years. Although recent technological advances have made the possibility of using the body as a receptive surface much more realistic, the fundamental limitations on the human information processing of tactile stimuli presented across the body surface are, however, still largely unknown. This literature review provides an overview of studies that have attempted to use vibrotactile interfaces to convey information to human operators. The importance of investigating any possible central cognitive limitations (i.e., rather than the peripheral limitations, such as related to sensory masking, that were typically addressed in earlier research) on tactile processing for the most effective design of body interfaces is highlighted. The applicability of the constraints emerging from studies of tactile processing under conditions of unisensory (i.e., purely tactile) stimulus presentation, to more ecologically valid conditions of multisensory stimulation, is also discussed. Finally, the results obtained from recent studies of tactile information processing under conditions of multisensory stimulation are described, and their implications for haptic/tactile interface design elucidated. IntroductionWe chose to begin this paper with a quote from one of the first and foremost researchers to have systematically approached the problem of cutaneous communication using the body surface. The quote, dating from 1960, and the paper from which the quote was taken, nicely highlight the novel interest in the topic as well as the technological constraints limiting the study of tactile information processing across the body at the time that Frank Geldard was writing. What's more, the choice of the date for such a citation is by no means accidental, given that in 1960 a group of investigators conferred at Fort Knox, Kentucky in order to discuss the basic problems associated with any attempt to communicate through the skin (see Hawkes, 1960, for a summary of the papers presented at that symposium). Therefore, we believe that 1960 can, in some sense, be taken to represent the "symbolic" birth of the first extensive research in this field. The place of the meeting was by no means coincidental either, given the strategic importance at that time (and even today), of studying novel means of communication for both military and civilian purposes.Nearly 50 years later, technology has moved on a long way, and a new wave of interest has recently started to resurface regarding the theoretical and practical ad-

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Human Spatial Navigation via a Visuo-Tactile Sensory Substitution System

Cited by 71 publications

References 31 publications

Primate Reaching Cued by Multichannel Spatiotemporal Cortical Microstimulation

Primate Reaching Cued by Multichannel Spatiotemporal Cortical Microstimulation

Direct coupling of haptic signals between hands

The Body Surface as a Communication System: The State of the Art after 50 Years

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