TY - JOUR
T1 - Simultaneity in perception of knocking
AU - Pressman, Assaf
AU - Karniel, Amir
AU - Mussa-Ivaldi, Ferdinando A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 13, 2010; revised June 1, 2011 and September 11, 2011; accepted November 14, 2011. Date of publication February 22, 2012; date of current version June 13, 2012. This research was supported by Grant No. 2007195 from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor T. Tsuji.
PY - 2012/7/1
Y1 - 2012/7/1
N2 - "Knock, knock-who's there?" Here, we do not address this question but rather the underlying mechanism behind the perception of knocking impacts. When one knocks on a surface, her hand makes a forward-backward motion and, at the point of reversal, the knuckles collide with the rigid surface. How does one perceive the unity, or simultaneity, of the sensory events associated with this impact? Does this binding derive from a temporal estimate of simultaneity, or does the brain use some other mechanism? In this paper, we ask whether the tap and the reversal of the hand are perceived as happening together, since both took place at the same time or at a particular state of motion. The aim of this research is to find out whether a tactile event and the flow of proprioceptive information regarding the state of the arm are matched within the central nervous system according to time or state. We tested this experimentally with subjects who actively moved one arm, as well as subjects who were servoed by a robotic device. Our results suggest that time is the mechanism used for judging the unity of the modalities for both active and passive movements. Taken together, these results provide a useful cue for neuroscientists as to the structure and function of the perceptual and motor systems and essential engineering knowledge for the development of effective and realistic augmented reality systems with haptics for the telerobotics, telesurgery, and telepresence applications of the future.
AB - "Knock, knock-who's there?" Here, we do not address this question but rather the underlying mechanism behind the perception of knocking impacts. When one knocks on a surface, her hand makes a forward-backward motion and, at the point of reversal, the knuckles collide with the rigid surface. How does one perceive the unity, or simultaneity, of the sensory events associated with this impact? Does this binding derive from a temporal estimate of simultaneity, or does the brain use some other mechanism? In this paper, we ask whether the tap and the reversal of the hand are perceived as happening together, since both took place at the same time or at a particular state of motion. The aim of this research is to find out whether a tactile event and the flow of proprioceptive information regarding the state of the arm are matched within the central nervous system according to time or state. We tested this experimentally with subjects who actively moved one arm, as well as subjects who were servoed by a robotic device. Our results suggest that time is the mechanism used for judging the unity of the modalities for both active and passive movements. Taken together, these results provide a useful cue for neuroscientists as to the structure and function of the perceptual and motor systems and essential engineering knowledge for the development of effective and realistic augmented reality systems with haptics for the telerobotics, telesurgery, and telepresence applications of the future.
KW - Active guidance
KW - haptic
KW - motor learning
KW - motor system
KW - perception
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84863602376&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TSMCA.2012.2183354
DO - 10.1109/TSMCA.2012.2183354
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84863602376
SN - 1083-4427
VL - 42
SP - 920
EP - 930
JO - IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A:Systems and Humans
JF - IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Part A:Systems and Humans
IS - 4
M1 - 6156465
ER -