City Research Online

Abstract

Vibrotactile stimuli can elicit compelling auditory sensations, even when sound energy levels are minimal and undetectable. It has previously been shown that subjects judge auditory tones embedded in white noise to be louder when they are accompanied by a vibrotactile stimulus of the same frequency. A first experiment replicated this result at four different levels of auditory stimulation (no tone, tone at detection threshold, tone at 5 dB above threshold, and tone at 10 dB above threshold). The presence of a vibrotactile stimulus induced an increase in the perceived loudness of auditory tones at three of the four values in this range. In two further experiments, a 2-interval forced-choice procedure was used to assess the nature of this cross-modal interaction. Subjects were biased when vibrotaction was applied in one interval, but applying vibrotaction in both intervals produced performance comparable to conditions without vibrotactile stimuli. This demonstrates that vibrotaction is sometimes ignored when judging the presence of an auditory tone. Hence the interaction between vibrotaction and audition does not appear to occur at an early perceptual level.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Yarrow K., Haggard P. and Rothwell J. C., 2008. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Perception, 37(7), 1114-1130, 2008, doi:10.1068/p5824
Publisher Keywords:	BROAD-BAND NOISE, STIMULATION, HEARING, CORTEX, TOUCH, FMRI
Subjects:	Q Science > QP Physiology
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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