The identification of the direction of electrocutaneous stimulation along lineal multistimulator arrays

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted in an effort to evaluate the ability of observers to identify the direction of brief-duration spatiotemporal patterns applied to the skin. In Experiment 1, observers were required to identify the direction of linear sweeps of electrical stimulation having varying total durations (sweep durations). Performance was evaluated at several loci on the body. The effects of stimulator number and spacing on the identification of sweep direction were evaluated in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, the effects of temporal sequencing of stimuli on the "apparent movement" phenomenon were evaluated at two body loci: the forearm and the abdomen. The results from all three experiments suggest that the ability to identify the direction of spatiotemporal sweeps can be heavily influenced by body locus, number, and spacing of electrodes. In short, the design of the tactile display may have important ramifications to the success of any sensory substitution transform hardware. © 1979 Psychonomic Society, Inc.