Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands

Abstract Feeling a texture typically involves sliding the fingers of a hand across that surface or rubbing the surface between the thumb and another digit. Texture signals appear to be integrated across the digits of a hand with perceived roughness at one finger swayed in the direction of texture to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Roberta D. Roberts
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2024-12-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83308-4
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1841559470395621376
author Roberta D. Roberts
author_facet Roberta D. Roberts
author_sort Roberta D. Roberts
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Feeling a texture typically involves sliding the fingers of a hand across that surface or rubbing the surface between the thumb and another digit. Texture signals appear to be integrated across the digits of a hand with perceived roughness at one finger swayed in the direction of texture touched by another finger of the same hand. To date, one study has reported similar integrative effects when the pairs of digits belong to different hands. This contrasts with observations from studies of tactile detection and tactile attention where the patterns of interactions between the digits depend on whether the digits belong to the same hand or not. The present experiments revisit the question of hand identity on multidigit roughness perception using two interval forced choice (2IFC) discrimination and single interval absolute magnitude estimation (AME). Pairs of tactile gratings were actively touched using the thumb and index fingers from the same or different hands. Attention was directed towards roughness at the thumb and index finger sensations were to be ignored. For both discrimination and ratings tasks, roughness perceived at the thumb varied with the textures touched by the index finger suggesting integration of roughness cues from the two digits. This integration occurred despite differences in the two tasks such as working memory requirements. Notably, roughness signals were integrated when originating in pairs of digits on the same hand but not when from different hands. These findings add to a body of evidence based on experiments using different stimuli and tasks, suggesting that hand identity affects interactions across the digits.
format Article
id doaj-art-d8ea4bf961db4b8eb08a76143f831f6b
institution Kabale University
issn 2045-2322
language English
publishDate 2024-12-01
publisher Nature Portfolio
record_format Article
series Scientific Reports
spelling doaj-art-d8ea4bf961db4b8eb08a76143f831f6b2025-01-05T12:30:56ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222024-12-0114111510.1038/s41598-024-83308-4Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the handsRoberta D. Roberts0School of Psychology, University of BirminghamAbstract Feeling a texture typically involves sliding the fingers of a hand across that surface or rubbing the surface between the thumb and another digit. Texture signals appear to be integrated across the digits of a hand with perceived roughness at one finger swayed in the direction of texture touched by another finger of the same hand. To date, one study has reported similar integrative effects when the pairs of digits belong to different hands. This contrasts with observations from studies of tactile detection and tactile attention where the patterns of interactions between the digits depend on whether the digits belong to the same hand or not. The present experiments revisit the question of hand identity on multidigit roughness perception using two interval forced choice (2IFC) discrimination and single interval absolute magnitude estimation (AME). Pairs of tactile gratings were actively touched using the thumb and index fingers from the same or different hands. Attention was directed towards roughness at the thumb and index finger sensations were to be ignored. For both discrimination and ratings tasks, roughness perceived at the thumb varied with the textures touched by the index finger suggesting integration of roughness cues from the two digits. This integration occurred despite differences in the two tasks such as working memory requirements. Notably, roughness signals were integrated when originating in pairs of digits on the same hand but not when from different hands. These findings add to a body of evidence based on experiments using different stimuli and tasks, suggesting that hand identity affects interactions across the digits.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83308-4Active touchRoughnessTextureMultidigitBilateral
spellingShingle Roberta D. Roberts
Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
Scientific Reports
Active touch
Roughness
Texture
Multidigit
Bilateral
title Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
title_full Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
title_fullStr Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
title_full_unstemmed Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
title_short Roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
title_sort roughness integration across fingers within compared with across the hands
topic Active touch
Roughness
Texture
Multidigit
Bilateral
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83308-4
work_keys_str_mv AT robertadroberts roughnessintegrationacrossfingerswithincomparedwithacrossthehands