Perceptual timing precision with vibrotactile, auditory, and multisensory stimuli

Abstract

The growing use of vibrotactile signaling devices makes it important to understand the perceptual limits on vibrotactile information-processing. To promote that understanding, we carried out a pair of experiments on vibrotactile, auditory, and bimodal (synchronous vibrotactile and auditory) temporal acuity. On each trial, subjects experienced a set of standard intervals (400 ms each), followed by one interval of variable duration ( 400±1-80 ms). Intervals were demarcated by short vibrotactile, auditory, or bimodal pulses.Subjects categorized the timing of the last interval by describing the final pulse as either "early" or "late" relative to its predecessors. In Experiment One, each trial contained three isochronous standard intervals, followed by an interval of variable length. In Experiment Two, the number of isochronous standard intervals per trial varied, from one to four. Psychometric modeling revealed that vibrotactile stimulation produced poorer temporal discrimination than either auditory or bimodal stimulation. Moreover, auditory signals dominated bimodal sensitivity, and inter-individual differences in temporal discriminability were reduced with bimodal stimulation. Additionally, varying the number of isochronous intervals in a trial failed to improve temporal sensitivity in either modality, suggesting that memory played a key role in judgments of interval duration.

Multisensory integration in humans with spinal cord injury

“…Based on previous literature showing that multisensory effects are associated with medium and large effect sizes [69][70][71] , an a-priori sensitivity power analysis (G*Power 3 software 72 ) revealed that our sample size was large enough to detect within-between interactions of interest in a mixed-design analyses of variance (ANOVA) which corresponds to a medium f = 0.3 effect size with a statistical power (1-β) of 0.95 (given α = 0.05, a correlation between repeated measures of 0.5, number of groups = 2, number of measurements = 6).…”

Visual and vibrotactile temporal sensitivity: Telling time with a noisy clock

“…It is well established that auditory temporal processing surpasses both tactile and visual temporal processing (Desloge et al, 2014;Jones, Poliakoff, & Wells, 2009;Rammsayer, 2014;Recanzone, 2003;Stauffer, Haldemann, Troche, & Rammsayer, 2012;Villalonga, Sussman, & Sekuler, 2021;Welch, DuttonHurt, & Warren, 1986).…”

“…The pooling or combination of information from multiple sources has long been among neuroscience's major concerns (Chandrasekaran, 2017;Parker & Newsome, 1998;Sinnett, Soto-Faraco, & Spence, 2008). When those distinct sources are multiple sensory modalities, their interaction can take many different forms, including facilitative combination (Forster, Cavina-Pratesi, Aglioti, & Berlucchi, 2002;Sperdin, Cappe, Foxe, & Murray, 2009), destructive competition (Sinnett et al, 2008;Sun & Sekuler, 2021), compromise (Crommett, Madala, & Yau, 2019), and unimodal dominance (Burr, Banks, & Morrone, 2009;Colavita, 1974;Villalonga et al, 2021). With one exception, these studies did not explicitly require temporal judgments.…”

Keep your finger on the pulse: Better rate perception and gap detection with vibrotactile compared to visual stimuli

“…It is well established that auditory temporal processing surpasses both tactile and visual temporal processing (Desloge et al, 2014 ; Jones et al, 2009 ; Rammsayer, 2014 ; Recanzone, 2003 ; Stauffer et al, 2012 ; Villalonga et al, 2021 ; Welch et al, 1986 ). Fewer psychophysical studies have directly compared tactile and visual temporal processing, and these visuo-tactile comparisons yield mixed results.…”