STUDY ON VISUO-TACTILE SENSORY INTEGRATION IN SHAPE PERCEPTION : Interaction between Sensory Integration and Active Perception

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  • 形状知覚における視-触覚の感覚統合過程の解析 : 感覚統合と能動性の関係

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Abstract

Experiments on adaptation to distorted visual and tactile rectangles were carried out to investigate interactions between visuo-tactile sensory integration and active perception in shape perception. The interactions have two aspects: the effects of active perception on sensory integration and the effects of sensory integration on active perception. Therefore, the first part of this paper discusses sensory integration with active and passive touch, and the second part discusses the changes of active touch finger movement in the sensory integration process. During the experiments, cross-modal reaction tests were held to evaluate adaptation to the vertical/horizontal ratio of shapes. Amount of sensory integration was estimated by this evaluation. There are two features of sensory integration with active touch: perception with voluntary finger movement and perception with synchronized visual and tactile information. Therefore, comparisons were made first between adaptation experiments with voluntary touch and that with passive touch, and secondly among that with successive visual and tactile stimulation, that with concurrent stimulation, and that with concurrent stimulation with visualized finger movement which strengthened the synchronization. The first comparison showed that adaptation of subjects with voluntary touch was greater than that of those with passive touch. The second comparison showed that adaptation was enhanced by visualized finger movement. Thus, voluntariness and intermodal synchronization of active perception were important factors in sensory integration. In these adaptation experiments, the finger movements by which the subjects actively obtain tactile information of shapes were measured by PSD camera. From position data of the finger, maximum velocities of movement were calculated, and the finger movement system was identified by applying ARMA model. When subjects were exposed to visual and tactile information concurrently either with or without visualized finger movement, maximum velocities of finger movement increased as the experiment proceed. In order to observe changes in finger movement systems, simulations of identified systems were performed. Simulated step responses of finger movement showed that rise time shortened as the experiment proceeded. These results suggested that sensory integration causes a quick response of active touch to visual information. Sensory integration and active perception interact effectively.

Journal

  • Biomechanisms

    Biomechanisms 10 (0), 23-32, 1990

    Society of Biomechanisms

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