Cognitive and Tactile Factors Affecting Human Haptic Performance in Later Life

Abstract

BackgroundVision and haptics are the key modalities by which humans perceive objects and interact with their environment in a target-oriented manner. Both modalities share higher-order neural resources and the mechanisms required for object exploration. Compared to vision, the understanding of haptic information processing is still rudimentary. Although it is known that haptic performance, similar to many other skills, decreases in old age, the underlying mechanisms are not clear. It is yet to be determined to what extent this decrease is related to the age-related loss of tactile acuity or cognitive capacity.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe investigated the haptic performance of 81 older adults by means of a cross-modal object recognition test. Additionally, we assessed the subjects' tactile acuity with an apparatus-based two-point discrimination paradigm, and their cognitive performance by means of the non-verbal Raven-Standard-Progressive matrices test. As expected, there was a significant age-related decline in performance on all 3 tests. With the exception of tactile acuity, this decline was found to be more distinct in female subjects. Correlation analyses revealed a strong relationship between haptic and cognitive performance for all subjects. Tactile performance, on the contrary, was only significantly correlated with male subjects' haptic performance.ConclusionsHaptic object recognition is a demanding task in old age, especially when it comes to the exploration of complex, unfamiliar objects. Our data support a disproportionately higher impact of cognition on haptic performance as compared to the impact of tactile acuity. Our findings are in agreement with studies reporting an increase in co-variation between individual sensory performance and general cognitive functioning in old age.

Measuring Change in Somatosensation Across the Lifespan

“…We found that older adults (those older than age 70) were less accurate than young adults in foot touch detection, kinesthesia, and haptic recognition; we did not find consistent changes for older adults on wrist position sense and texture discrimination. Although others have reported that women's decline in accuracy and speed for exploration of unfamiliar objects is greater than men's (Kalisch et al, 2012), we found a gender difference only for brief kinesthesia, and women were more accurate. Some researchers have demonstrated both neural changes in proprioception specifically (Goble et al, 2012;Goble, Lewis, Hurvitz, & Brown, 2005) and plasticity of the somatosensory cortex more globally in older adults, findings that may represent a compensatory mechanism to counterbalance cortical degeneration (Pellicciari, Miniussi, Rossini, & De Gennaro, 2009).…”

“…Young adults are better at recognizing raised letters and textures than older adults (Manning & Tremblay, 2006). Others have reported that two-point discrimination and haptic discrimination diminish in adults age 65 yr and older (Kalisch, Kattenstroth, Kowalewski, Tegenthoff, & Dinse, 2012;Lederman & Klatzky, 2009;Schumm et al, 2009;Stevens et al, 2003) and were significantly less accurate for people who tend to fall (Melzer, Benjuya, & Kaplanski, 2004). Diminishing proprioception and sensitivity across adulthood have also been documented (Laszlo & Bairstow, 1980;Ribeiro & Oliveira, 2007;Stevens et al, 2003;Wickremaratchi & Llewelyn, 2006).…”

Estimating the influence of age-related changes in skin stiffness on tactile perception for static stimulations

“…If the discrimination distance between 2 points is less than the measured minimum distance, then we wrongly perceive only 1 point despite being stimulated by the 2-point indenter. Moreover, the test showed that the minimum 2-point discrimination distance of elderly people is larger than that of young people (Stevens and Choo, 1996;Kalisch et al, 2012;Pleger et al, 2016). The discrimination distance of young people is approximately 2.0 mm, and that of elderly people is approximately 3.5 mm.…”

Left and Right Hand Tactile Naming Ability of Everyday Articles by a Young Adult Sample

“…This could reflect the better treatment of spatial information by the right hemisphere. Moreover, studies have often reported that men are either more strongly lateralized or more accurate than women (e.g., Dawson, 1981;Kalisch, Kattenstroth, Kowalewski, Tegenthoff, & Dinse, 2012).…”

“…The results are expected to become reference data in the clinical study of TOR disorders. Finally, since a variety of studies reported stronger laterality effects in men with respect to women in the tactile modality (e.g., Dawson, 1981;Kalisch et al, 2012;Lenhart & Schwartz, 1983), possible sex diffrence also explored additionally.…”