Target patterns presented to uncued locations on a single fingerpad were followed by either sameshape (SS) maskers or different-shape (DS) maskers presented to either the same location (SLoc) or a different location (DLoc). DS maskers interfered with identification more when they were at SLoc than when they were at DLoc,but the reverse was true for SS maskers; they interfered more at DLoc than at SLoc. Whentargets were presented to cued locations, performance in the absence of maskers improved, but the pattern of interference from maskers resembled that for uncued presentation. The proportion of masker responses on incorrect trials revealed that both temporal masking and response competition may be involved in the effects of location on pattern identification.The present study examined whether the location of a pattern on the skin affects the ability to process information about its spatial features. Specifically, does location affect the ability to identify spatial patterns on a single fingerpad? The fingerpad was examined because of its high spatial resolution (Sathian & Zangaledze, 1996;Sherrick & Cholewiak, 1986;Stevens & Patterson, 1995;Van Boven & Johnson, 1994;Weinstein, 1968), because of its role in tactual exploration, and because it is used to process successive spatial patterns in tactile communication systems such as braille and the Optacon (Bliss, Katcher, Rogers, & Shepard, 1970). In studies using the Optacon vibratory array or similar dense arrays of vibrators, spatial patterns have usually been presented either to a single location or to locations on separate body sites. Some of the studies examining separate body sites have compared the pattern processing capabilities of the sites (Cholewiak & Craig, 1984;Craig, 1977;Loomis, 1980;Scadden, 1973). In other studies examining separate sites, patterns were presented to separate fingers and attentional factors were investigated (Craig, 1985a;Craig & Evans, 1995;Evans & Craig, 1991, 1992Evans, Craig, & Rinker, 1992;Horner, 1992Horner, , 1995Rinker & Craig, 1994). Relatively few studies have examined how spatial patterns are processed at adjacent locations on a single fingerpad.Hill (1974) indirectly measured the effects of presenting patterns to adjacent locations on the fingerpad when An earlier version of some of the material in Experiment I was presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in November 1993. An earlier version of some of the material in Experiment 2 was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society in June 1995. This research was supported by the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and by Grant DC-00095 from the Nationallnstitutes of Health. nT.H. wishes to thank James Craig for his comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and Roger Rhodes for his assistance in conducting these experiments. Correspondence should be addressed to D. T. Horner, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, WI 54901-8601 (e-mail: homer@vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu).he examined Optacon reading rates using differ...