Feeling the Beat: Bouncing Synchronization to Vibrotactile Music in Hearing and Early Deaf People

Abstract

The ability to dance relies on the ability to synchronize movements to a perceived musical beat. Typically, beat synchronization is studied with auditory stimuli. However, in many typical social dancing situations, music can also be perceived as vibrations when objects that generate sounds also generate vibrations. This vibrotactile musical perception is of particular relevance for deaf people, who rely on non-auditory sensory information for dancing. In the present study, we investigated beat synchronization to vibrotactile electronic dance music in hearing and deaf people. We tested seven deaf and 14 hearing individuals on their ability to bounce in time with the tempo of vibrotactile stimuli (no sound) delivered through a vibrating platform. The corresponding auditory stimuli (no vibrations) were used in an additional condition in the hearing group. We collected movement data using a camera-based motion capture system and subjected it to a phase-locking analysis to assess synchronization quality. The vast majority of participants were able to precisely time their bounces to the vibrations, with no difference in performance between the two groups. In addition, we found higher performance for the auditory condition compared to the vibrotactile condition in the hearing group. Our results thus show that accurate tactile-motor synchronization in a dance-like context occurs regardless of auditory experience, though auditory-motor synchronization is of superior quality.

Musicians Show Better Auditory and Tactile Identification of Emotions in Music

“…Some studies suggest that non-musicians can detect different musical notes via the tactile modality (Hopkins et al, 2016) and that they can discriminate timbre (Russo et al, 2012). Furthermore, low frequencies in music are important to understanding beat and can be transmitted via vibrotactile devices (Van Dyck et al, 2013; Tranchant et al, 2017). All these psychoacoustic cues are known to be transmitted via the tactile modality and are all important for emotion identification in music.…”

Hydrovibrotactile stimulation in rehabilitation of deaf children

“…Такое виброоборудование до сих пор применяется в центрах реабилитации детей с нарушением слуха, работающих по верботональному методу [7]. Был положительный опыт использования вибрирующей платформы для обучения глухих танцам и восприятию ритмичной музыки [8].…”

Development of an Electrostatic Beat Module for Various Tactile Sensations in Touch Screen Devices

“…There have been a few research works for creating beat vibration [17][18][19][20][21]. S.C. Lim et al developed a pin-array tactile device and generated haptic beats by providing two pins with slightly different sinusoidal operation frequencies [17].…”

“…S. Yang et al created haptic beats using two vibrotactile actuators and investigated users' ability to distinguish emergent haptic beats from pairs of pure vibration presentations as a function of body location and frequency differences [18]. P. Tranchant et al developed a tactile module for generating beat and they investigated beat synchronization to vibrotactile electronic dance music in hearing and deaf people [19]. M. Konyo et al suggested a tactile synthesis method using multiple frequency vibrations [20].…”