Inducing circular vection with tactile stimulation encircling the waist

Abstract

In general, moving sensory stimuli (visual and auditory) can induce illusory sensations of self-motion (i.e. vection) in the direction opposite of the sensory stimulation. The aim of the current study was to examine whether tactile stimulation encircling the waist could induce circular vection (around the body's yaw axis) and to examine whether this type of stimulation would influence participants' walking trajectory and balance. We assessed the strength and direction of perceived self-motion while vision was blocked and while either receiving tactile stimulation encircling the waist clockwise or counterclockwise or no tactile stimulation. Additionally, we assessed participants' walking trajectory and balance while receiving these different stimulations. Tactile stimulation encircling the waist was found to lead to self-reported circular vection in a subset of participants. In this subset of participants, circular vection was on average experienced in the same direction as the tactile stimulation. Additionally, perceived rotatory self-motion in participants that reported circular vection correlated with balance (i.e., sway velocity and the standard error of the mean in the medio-lateral dimension). The fact that, in this subset of participants, subjective reports of vection correlated with objective outcome measures indicates that tactile stimulation encircling the waist might indeed be able to induced circular vection.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on The Use of Tactile Stimulation in Vection Research

“…In the 23 articles we found through our literature search, the application of tactile stimuli varied from applying forces to the body (Oishi et al, 2016), blowing wind (Churan et al, 2017;Feng et al, 2016;Seno, Ogawa, et al, 2011), stretching the skin (Horie et al, 2018) to vibro-tactile stimulation of various body parts. Vibro-tactile stimulation was applied to the buttocks (Amemiya et al, 2016(Amemiya et al, , 2013b(Amemiya et al, , 2013a, dorsal side of the body (Lind et al, 2016), feet (Kitazaki et al, 2019(Kitazaki et al, , 2016Kruijff et al, 2016;Matsuda et al, 2020;Nilsson et al, 2012;Nordahl et al, 2012;Väljamäe et al, 2009), the lower back and buttocks (Soave et al, 2020), torso (Rupert & Kolev, 2008) and waist (Tinga et al, 2018). Participants passively experienced the stimuli except in the experiments by Kruijff et al (2016) wherein participants controlled the movement of a virtual avatar by either leaning forward or by moving a joystick.…”

“…However, some authors described the possibility of enhancing visually induced vection by multimodal stimulation (Kruijff et al, 2016;Riecke, Schulte-Pelkum, Caniard, et al, 2005) or that the perception of self-motion is a multisensory event (Oishi et al, 2016). Tinga et al (2018) described vection as "…the sensation of self-motion induced by moving sensory stimulation not corresponding to the veridical self motion." Väljamäe et al (2006) described vection as "…a sensation of actual movement relative to a stable surrounding environment", which predominantly aligns with the second definition of vection of Palmisano et al (2015).…”

“…Kitazaki et al (2019) instructed the participants that if they felt "…as if they were passively moving, it is a self-motion sensation." Tinga et al (2018) provided participants with written instructions detailing the train illusion as well as a description on the illusory motion after-effect that is experienced after being rotated on a desk-chair to assist participants in quantifying the subjective measures of self-motion.…”

“…Participants were instructed to rate their perceived self-motion during the stimulus presentation by entering a numeric value using a keyboard, a pressing a button (Farkhatdinov et al, 2013;Seno, Ogawa, et al, 2011), moving a joystick (Riecke, Schulte-Pelkum, Caniard, et al, 2005;Soave et al, 2020), or via verbal reports (Horie et al, 2018;Väljamäe et al, 2006Väljamäe et al, , 2009. However, in some studies, participants rated the magnitude or intensity after the stimulus present by means of a questionnaire (Feng et al, 2016;Kitazaki et al, 2019Kitazaki et al, , 2016Lind et al, 2016;Matsuda et al, 2020;Oishi et al, 2016), verbal report (Kruijff et al, 2016;Nilsson et al, 2012;Nordahl et al, 2012;Riecke et al, 2009;Tinga et al, 2018) or by entering a value using a keyboard (Amemiya et al, 2016(Amemiya et al, , 2013b(Amemiya et al, , 2013aSeno, Ogawa, et al, 2011). From these methods, subjective measures were derived which are discussed in more detail in the following section.…”

“…Intensity or convincingness (compellingness) ratings were used most throughout the studies we reviewed. Intensity ratings were recorded either via a numerical scale (Kruijff et al, 2016;Lind et al, 2016;Nilsson et al, 2012;Nordahl et al, 2012;Oishi et al, 2016;Riecke et al, 2009;Riecke, Schulte-Pelkum, Caniard, et al, 2005;Tinga et al, 2018;Väljamäe et al, 2006Väljamäe et al, , 2009 or a Visual Analogue Scale (Kitazaki et al, 2019(Kitazaki et al, , 2016Matsuda et al, 2020). In most of these studies, participants were asked to report the intensity of the vection they perceived upon completion of the trial.…”