Spatial Stimulus-Response Compatibility and Coding of Tactile Motor Events: Influence of Distance between Stimulated and Responding Body Parts, Spatial Complexity of the Task and Sex of Subject

Abstract

We studied spatial stimulus response compatibility in the somatosensory modality by instructing 16 men and 16 women to press a key using the left or the right thumb in response to a nonnoxious electric stimulation delivered either to the left or to the right little finger or, in different blocks, to the left or to the right malleolar region. The task was performed in compatible (stimulus and key-response on the same side of the corporeal midline) and in incompatible conditions (stimulus and key-response on opposite sides of the corporeal midline). In Exp. 1 subjects were tested while keeping their limbs in anatomic position; in Exp. 2 subjects performed the task while keeping the left upper and lower limbs on the right side and the right limbs on the left side of the bodily midline (crossed position). The compatibility effect was observed in both experiments and was higher for stimuli delivered to the little finger than to the malleolar region. This suggests that the cost of inhibiting compatible responses is maximal when stimulated and responding body parts are contiguous. Moreover, in the spatially most demanding task (Exp. 2) men outperformed women for both speed and accuracy suggesting a sex related specialisation in the spatial processing of somatosensory information.

Multisensory-driven facilitation within the peripersonal space is modulated by the expectations about stimulus location on the body

“…Here we analyzed only the responses to the left-hand stimuli (i.e., we excluded the responses to the right-hand stimuli of the bilateral task), in order to include the same number of trials per condition for each task and to exclude any stimulus–response compatibility confound 38 . However, in the Supplementary Information , we performed some control analyses, comparing the responses to left-hand and right-hand stimuli, to rule out that significant differences emerged between stimulus responses on the two hands in the bilateral task.…”

Mid-Air Gestural Interaction with a Large Fogscreen

“…During the initial testing phase, the average duration of the fog tapping gesture was about 160 ms, while a comfortable duration of the dwell-based selection gesture was registered as 1000 ms. To ensure that the haptic feedback was easily recognizable, we utilized various characteristics of tactile-cue design, such as frequency, duration, rhythm, waveform, and location [26,27]. The vibrotactile stimulation patterns were carefully selected empirically within the frequency range of 150-300 Hz, which had been demonstrated to effectively stimulate Pacinian corpuscles in both glabrous and hairy skin regions, resulting in clear perception and recognition of haptic stimuli [28,29].…”