Tactile dominance in speeded discrimination of textures.

Full Abstract

When assessing the roughness of textures, no single sensory modality universally dominates perception. Instead, the task and stimuli critically determine to what extent a given sense is favoured. We report a visuotactile texture assessment experiment, consisting of the speeded discrimination of roughened textile samples, in the presence of a congruent or an incongruent textile distractor. When discriminating between samples, visual assessment of textile roughness was modulated by incongruous tactile distractors, but not vice versa, even when visual distractors were more discriminable than tactile targets. This asymmetry in interference suggests that 'modality appropriateness' is not purely a function of the discriminative ability of a sensory modality, but that ecological validity may play a role in determining the more 'appropriate' sense for a given task. Results are discussed in relation to the claim that the assessment of textiles is more ecologically suited to touch than to vision.

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Author information

Author/s: Guest, Steve (S); Spence, Charles (C);

Affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3UD, Oxford, UK. steve_guest(-atsign-)dentistry.unc.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Experimental brain research. Experimentelle Hirnforschung. Expérimentation cérébrale (Exp Brain Res), published in Germany. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-May; vol 150 (issue 2) : pp 201-7

Dates: Created 2003/05/05; Completed 2003/07/25; Revised 2008/02/15;

PMID: 12679862, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Female
Humans
Male

Male
Middle Aged
Photic Stimulation - methods
Physical Stimulation - methods
Reaction Time - physiology
Touch - physiology

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