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Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study
Both hearing and touch are sensitive to the frequency of mechanical oscillations—sound waves and tactile vibrations, respectively. The mounting evidence of parallels in temporal frequency processing between the two sensory systems led us to directly address the question of perceptual frequency equiv...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500524/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36161171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1006185 |
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author | Sharma, Deepak Ng, Kevin K. W. Birznieks, Ingvars Vickery, Richard M. |
author_facet | Sharma, Deepak Ng, Kevin K. W. Birznieks, Ingvars Vickery, Richard M. |
author_sort | Sharma, Deepak |
collection | PubMed |
description | Both hearing and touch are sensitive to the frequency of mechanical oscillations—sound waves and tactile vibrations, respectively. The mounting evidence of parallels in temporal frequency processing between the two sensory systems led us to directly address the question of perceptual frequency equivalence between touch and hearing using stimuli of simple and more complex temporal features. In a cross-modal psychophysical paradigm, subjects compared the perceived frequency of pulsatile mechanical vibrations to that elicited by pulsatile acoustic (click) trains, and vice versa. Non-invasive pulsatile stimulation designed to excite a fixed population of afferents was used to induce desired temporal spike trains at frequencies spanning flutter up to vibratory hum (>50 Hz). The cross-modal perceived frequency for regular test pulse trains of either modality was a close match to the presented stimulus physical frequency up to 100 Hz. We then tested whether the recently discovered “burst gap” temporal code for frequency, that is shared by the two senses, renders an equivalent cross-modal frequency perception. When subjects compared trains comprising pairs of pulses (bursts) in one modality against regular trains in the other, the cross-sensory equivalent perceptual frequency best corresponded to the silent interval between the successive bursts in both auditory and tactile test stimuli. These findings suggest that identical acoustic and vibrotactile pulse trains, regardless of pattern, elicit equivalent frequencies, and imply analogous temporal frequency computation strategies in both modalities. This perceptual correspondence raises the possibility of employing a cross-modal comparison as a robust standard to overcome the prevailing methodological limitations in psychophysical investigations and strongly encourages cross-modal approaches for transmitting sensory information such as translating pitch into a similar pattern of vibration on the skin. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9500524 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95005242022-09-24 Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study Sharma, Deepak Ng, Kevin K. W. Birznieks, Ingvars Vickery, Richard M. Front Neurosci Neuroscience Both hearing and touch are sensitive to the frequency of mechanical oscillations—sound waves and tactile vibrations, respectively. The mounting evidence of parallels in temporal frequency processing between the two sensory systems led us to directly address the question of perceptual frequency equivalence between touch and hearing using stimuli of simple and more complex temporal features. In a cross-modal psychophysical paradigm, subjects compared the perceived frequency of pulsatile mechanical vibrations to that elicited by pulsatile acoustic (click) trains, and vice versa. Non-invasive pulsatile stimulation designed to excite a fixed population of afferents was used to induce desired temporal spike trains at frequencies spanning flutter up to vibratory hum (>50 Hz). The cross-modal perceived frequency for regular test pulse trains of either modality was a close match to the presented stimulus physical frequency up to 100 Hz. We then tested whether the recently discovered “burst gap” temporal code for frequency, that is shared by the two senses, renders an equivalent cross-modal frequency perception. When subjects compared trains comprising pairs of pulses (bursts) in one modality against regular trains in the other, the cross-sensory equivalent perceptual frequency best corresponded to the silent interval between the successive bursts in both auditory and tactile test stimuli. These findings suggest that identical acoustic and vibrotactile pulse trains, regardless of pattern, elicit equivalent frequencies, and imply analogous temporal frequency computation strategies in both modalities. This perceptual correspondence raises the possibility of employing a cross-modal comparison as a robust standard to overcome the prevailing methodological limitations in psychophysical investigations and strongly encourages cross-modal approaches for transmitting sensory information such as translating pitch into a similar pattern of vibration on the skin. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9500524/ /pubmed/36161171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1006185 Text en Copyright © 2022 Sharma, Ng, Birznieks and Vickery. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Sharma, Deepak Ng, Kevin K. W. Birznieks, Ingvars Vickery, Richard M. Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title | Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title_full | Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title_fullStr | Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title_full_unstemmed | Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title_short | Auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: A cross-modal psychophysical study |
title_sort | auditory clicks elicit equivalent temporal frequency perception to tactile pulses: a cross-modal psychophysical study |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500524/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36161171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.1006185 |
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