Hands help hearing: Facilitatory audiotactile interaction at low sound-intensity levels

Martin Schürmann, Gina Caetano, Veikko Jousmäki, Riitta Hari

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    86 Citations (Scopus)
    288 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Auditory and vibrotactile stimuli share similar temporal patterns. A psychophysical experiment was performed to test whether this similarity would lead into an intermodal bias in perception of sound intensity. Nine normal-hearing subjects performed a loudness-matching task of faint tones, adjusting the probe tone to sound equally loud as a reference tone. The task was performed both when the subjects were touching and when they were not touching a tube that vibrated simultaneously with the probe tone. The subjects chose on average 12% lower intensities (p<0.01) for the probe tone when they touched the tube, suggesting facilitatory interaction between auditory and tactile senses in normal-hearing subjects.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)830-832
    JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
    Volume115
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Keywords

    • audiotactile interaction
    • auditory stimuli
    • vibrotactile stimuli

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