Vibro-Tactile and Visual Asynchronies: Sensitivity and Consistency
- 1 January 2004
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Perception
- Vol. 33 (1), 103-111
- https://doi.org/10.1068/p5014
Abstract
We investigated the consistency between tactually and visually designated empty time intervals. In a forced-choice discrimination task, participants judged whether the second of two intervals was shorter or longer than the first interval. Two pulses defined the intervals. The pulse was either a vibro-tactile burst presented to the fingertip, or a foveally presented white square. The comparisons were made for uni-modal and cross-modal intervals. We used four levels of standard interval durations in the range of 100–800 ms. The results showed that tactile empty intervals must be 8.5% shorter to be perceived as long as visual intervals. This cross-modal bias is larger for small intervals and decreases with increasing standard intervals. The Weber fractions (the threshold divided by the standard interval) are 20% and are constant over the standard intervals. This indicates that the Weber law holds for the range of interval lengths tested. Furthermore, the Weber fractions are consistent over uni-modal and cross-modal comparisons, which indicates that there is no additional noise involved in the cross-modal comparisons.Keywords
This publication has 44 references indexed in Scilit:
- Humans integrate visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal fashionNature, 2002
- Processing demand modulates the effects of spatial attention on the judged duration of a brief stimulusPerception & Psychophysics, 2001
- Perceptual Asymmetries in the Somatosensory System: A Dichhaptic Experiment and Critical Review of the Literature from 1929 to 1986Cortex, 1990
- Visual mediation and the haptic recognition of two-dimensional pictures of common objectsPerception & Psychophysics, 1990
- Temporal order and tactile patternsPerception & Psychophysics, 1989
- Discrimination of time: comparison of foveal and peripheral sensitivityJournal of the Optical Society of America A, 1984
- Resolving of successive clicks by the ears and skin.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1966
- Perceived order in different sense modalities.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1961
- An Empirical Comparison of Audition, Vision, and Touch in the Discrimination of Short Intervals of TimeThe American Journal of Psychology, 1934