Selective modification of tactile roughness perception in terms of auditory stimuli
Poster Presentation

Yuika Suzuki
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University

Jiro Gyoba
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University

     Abstract ID Number: 8
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: March 1, 2007
     Presentation date: 07/05/2007 10:00 AM in Quad Maclauren Hall
     (View Schedule)

Abstract
According to previous studies, the tactile roughness perception of an object surface tends to be affected by the sounds produced by rubbing it with the finger or a probe. Recent fMRI studies report that the discriminations of tactile roughness and length activate different cortical regions. This study investigated whether auditory stimuli would differentially modify the tactile estimation of roughness and length. Experiment 1 used white noises that changed with regard to loudness (53 dB-69 dB) or short beeps (50 msec); Experiment 2 employed pure tones that changed with regard to loudness. Participants touched abrasive paper, synchronizing their touch with changes in the sounds' loudness or the onset of the beep, and judged tactile roughness or length by using the magnitude estimation method. Although the white noise significantly increased the roughness estimation of a smooth surface, it did not modify the length estimation. Both pure tones and beeps affected neither the roughness nor the length. Our results revealed that complex sounds like white noise selectively affect tactile roughness, even when they are seemingly irrelevant to touch. Thus, it is concluded that tactile information processing of roughness and auditory information processing of complex sounds may contain a common basis.