Electrotactile stimulation on the tongue: Intensity perception, discrimination, and cross-modality estimation

Autor:	Cecil Lozano, Marco Santello, Kurt A. Kaczmarek
Rok vydání:	2009
Předmět:	Adult Male medicine.medical_specialty Physiology media_common.quotation_subject Sensory system Stimulation Audiology Stimulus (physiology) Article Tongue Perception Sensory threshold medicine Psychophysics Humans media_common business.industry Electric Stimulation Sensory Systems medicine.anatomical_structure Sensory substitution Touch Sensory Thresholds Female business
Zdroj:	Somatosensory & Motor Research. 26:50-63
ISSN:	1369-1651 0899-0220
Popis:	Due to its high sensitivity and conductivity, electrotactile stimulation (ETS) on the tongue has proven to be a useful and technically convenient tool to substitute and/or augment sensory capabilities. However, most of its applications have only provided spatial attributes and little is known about (a) the ability of the tongue's sensory system to process electrical stimuli of varying magnitudes and (b) how modulation of ETS intensity affects subjects' ability to decode stimulus intensity. We addressed these questions by quantifying: (1) the magnitude of the dynamic range (DR; maximal comfortable intensity/perception threshold) and its sensitivity to prolonged exposure; (2) subjects' ability to perceive intensity changes; and (3) subjects' ability to associate intensity with angular excursions of a protractor's handle. We found that the average DR (17 dB) was generally large in comparison with other tactile loci and of a relatively constant magnitude among subjects, even after prolonged exposure, despite a slight but significant upward drift (P < 0.001). Additionally, our results showed that as stimulus intensity increased, subjects' ability to discriminate ETS stimuli of different intensities improved (P < 0.05) while estimation accuracy, in general, slightly decreased (increasing underestimation). These results suggest that higher ETS intensity may increase recruitment of rapidly adapting mechanoreceptor fibers, as these are specialized for coding stimulus differences rather than absolute intensities. Furthermore, our study revealed that the tongue's sensory system can effectively convey electrical stimuli despite minimal practice and when information transfer is limited by memory and DR drift.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_dedup___::c4ed981876fc08a4ae881f95251f2caf https://doi.org/10.1080/08990220903158797 Zobrazit plný text záznamu Plný text ve formátu PDF Plný text ve formátu HTML
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