Touch can be as accurate as passively-guided kinaesthesis in length perception

Multisens Res. 2013;26(5):417-28. doi: 10.1163/22134808-00002428.

Abstract

Two experiments were designed to investigate the contribution of touch and kinaesthesis to haptic perception of the length of raised lines. Experiment 1 showed that judgements based on kinaesthetic information were not more accurate than those based on cutaneous information. Instead, kinaesthetic and cutaneous inputs appear to be weighted almost equally in the haptic percept, with haptic performance more closely approximated by cutaneous performance than by kinaesthetic. In Experiment 2 it was shown that effects attributed to condition (modality) were not due to the speed with which the stimulus or exploring finger moved. Our results challenge the view that kinaesthesis is more important than touch for identification of raised line drawings.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Psychophysics
  • Space Perception / physiology*
  • Touch / physiology*
  • Young Adult