Vibrotactile masking: Some spatial and temporal aspects

Gilson, Richard D.

doi:10.3758/bf03209553

Cited by 73 publications

(57 citation statements)

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“…They found no interference when the nontarget was presented to the right hand; however, they also found no interference when the nontarget was placed closer to the target, so it is difficult to draw a definite conclusion from this study about the effect of presenting target and nontarget stimuli to quite distant sites on the skin. As noted before, in a study on masking in which subjects attempted to detect a target on one location on the fingers and ignore a masking stimulus presented to another location, more interference occurred when stimuli were presented to the same hand than when they were presented to different hands (Gilson, 1969).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Intuitively, it would seem to be easier to ignore a nontarget when it is presented at some distance from the target site. However, in a study of detection masking, Gilson (1969) showed that there was no difference in the amount of interference when the masking stimulus was moved from a site adjacent to the target site to a nonadjacent site. There was a decline in masking when the masking stimulus was presented to the opposite hand.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Perceptual processing of adjacent and nonadjacent tactile nontargets

Evans

Craig

Rinker

1992

Perception & Psychophysics

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Previous research has shown that subjects appear unable to restrict processing to a single finger and ignore a stimulus presented to an adjacent finger. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that, at least for moving stimuli, an adjacent nontarget is fully processed to the level of incipient response activation, The present study replicated and expanded upon these original findings. The results of Experiment 1 showed that an equally large response-competition effect occurred when the nontarget was presented to adjacent and nonadjacent fingers (on the same hand). The results of Experiment 2 showed that the effects observed in Experiment 1 (and in previous studies) were also obtained with stationary stimuli. Although small, there was some indication in the results of Experiment 2 that interference may dissipate more rapidly with distance with stationary stimuli. An additional finding was that interference effects were observed in both experiments with temporal separations between the target and nontarget of up to 100 msec. In Experiment 3, target and nontarget stimuli were presented to opposite hands. Although reduced, interference was still evident with target and nontarget stimuli presented to opposite hands. Varying the physical distance between hands did not produce any change in the amount of interference. The results suggest that the focus of attention on the skin extends nearly undiminished across the fingers of one hand and is not dependent upon the physical distance between sites of stimulation. 571A recent study by Evans and Craig (1991) indicated that subjects have difficulty focusing their attention on one finger and ignoring stimulation at an adjacent site. In this study, subjects were instructed to focus their attention on the left index fmger and to identify the direction of movement of the stimulus presented to that finger. A second stimulus, also moving, was presented to the middle finger, adjacent to the index finger. The stimuli moved in the same direction or in opposite directions. We reasoned that if subjects could restrict their attention to the target location, the presence of the nontarget would produce little, if any, interference. If, however, subjects are unable to restrict their attention to a single finger on one hand, then the direction of movement of the adjacent nontarget might interfere with target performance in a systematic fashion. Specifically, target performance might be interfered with when the direction of movement of the nontarget was opposite to that of the target. The results showed that when the target and nontarget moved in opposite directions, accuracy was reduced and response latencies (correct trials) This research was supported by Grant DC-00095 from the National Institutesof Health and was conducted while the first author was a visiting scholar in the Institute for the Study of Human Capabilities at Indiana University. The authors thank Roger P. Rhodes for his assistance in conducting these experiments. Reprint requests should be addressed to P. M. Evans, Department o...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 78%

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confidence: 99%

Perceptual processing of adjacent and nonadjacent tactile nontargets

Evans

Craig

Rinker

1992

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…In particular, the extent to which a vibrotactile distractor will interfere with discrimination responses for vibrotactile targets depends on the relative separation of the two hands in external space: The closer the distractor is to the target, the harder it is for people to ignore it. Similar spatial modulations of congruency (or flanker interference) effects have been reported within other sensory modalities, such as audition and vision (e.g., Chan et al, 2004;Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974; see Styles, 1997, for a review), and also in numerous previous studies of intramodal tactile selective attention (e.g., Craig, 1974;Gilson, 1969;Weisenberger, 1994;Weisenberger & Craig, 1982). However, these earlier studies often manipulated spatial distance in somatotopic and abstract reference frames at the same time, and therefore, the question of which frame of reference is relevant during tactile spatial selective attention remained unanswered.…”

Section: Spatial Modulation Of Tactile Selective Attentionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Numerous studies have shown that a person's ability to detect or identify a tactile stimulus presented to a particular location on the skin can be impaired if a distractor stimulus is presented from a nearby skin site (e.g., Craig, 1974;Gilson, 1969;Horner, 1995Horner, , 1997Weisenberger, 1994;Weisenberger & Craig, 1982). Such tactile interference effects do not merely reflect the consequences of sensory masking, since an attentional component to the effect has also been identified (e.g., Craig, 1974;Evans & Craig, 1991;Horner, 1997Horner, , 2000.…”

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confidence: 99%

Tactile selective attention and body posture: Assessing the multisensory contributions of vision and proprioception

Soto‐Faraco

Ronald

Spence

2004

Perception & Psychophysics

102

103

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This study addressed the role of proprioceptive and visual cues to body posture during the deployment of tactile spatial attention. Participants made speeded elevation judgments (up vs. down) to vibrotactile targets presented to the finger or thumb of either hand, while attempting to ignore vibrotactile distractors presented to the opposite hand. The first two experiments established the validity of this paradigm and showed that congruency effects were stronger when the target hand was uncertain (Experiment 1) than when it was certain (Experiment 2). Varying the orientation of the hands revealed that these congruency effects were determined by the position of the target and distractor in external space, and not by the particular skin sites stimulated (Experiment 3). Congruency effects increased as the hands were brought closer together in the dark (Experiment 4), demonstrating the role of proprioceptive input in modulating tactile selective attention. This spatial modulation was also demonstrated when a mirror was used to alter the visually perceived separation between the hands (Experiment 5). These results suggest that tactile, spatially selective attention can operate according to an abstract spatial frame of reference, which is significantly modulated by multisensory contributions from both proprioception and vision.

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“…Research has typically concentrated on studying masking and tactile perception on the hands and fingers with relatively few studies examining the whole body 14,[24][25][26][27] . Future directions could include testing contralateral masking on more extensive areas of the body, which might reveal unexpected connections between other body parts or within a limb that could shed light on how the three-dimensional body is represented within the brain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

D’Amour

Harris

2016

JoVE

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Masking, in which one stimulus affects the detection of another, is a classic technique that has been used in visual, auditory, and tactile research, usually using stimuli that are close together to reveal local interactions. Masking effects have also been demonstrated in which a tactile stimulus alters the perception of a touch at a distant location. Such effects can provide insight into how components of the body's representations in the brain may be linked. Occasional reports have indicated that touches on one hand or forearm can affect tactile sensitivity at corresponding contralateral locations. To explore the matching of corresponding points across the body, we can measure the spatial tuning and effect of posture on contralateral masking. Careful controls are required to rule out direct effects of the remote stimulus, for example by mechanical transmission, and also attention effects in which thresholds may be altered by the participant's attention being drawn away from the stimulus of interest. The use of this technique is beneficial as a behavioural measure for exploring which parts of the body are functionally connected and whether the two sides of the body interact in a somatotopic representation. This manuscript describes a behavioural protocol that can be used for studying contralateral tactile masking. Video LinkThe video component of this article can be found at

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Vibrotactile masking: Some spatial and temporal aspects

Abstract: Threshold elevations (TE) The few studies that have dealt with problems of intrasensory interaction on the skin with the standard masking procedure have confined stimulation to a relatively circumscribed area of the body, i.e., the fingers, hands, and forearms (Halliday

Cited by 73 publications

References 13 publications

Perceptual processing of adjacent and nonadjacent tactile nontargets

Perceptual processing of adjacent and nonadjacent tactile nontargets

Tactile selective attention and body posture: Assessing the multisensory contributions of vision and proprioception

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

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