Auditory and oral tactile sensory system interactions: Magnitude estimation and cross‐modality matching

Abstract

Research that has been done on the interaction of auditory and oral tactile sensory systems has involved experimental techniques intended to disrupt one or both sensory modalities. An instrumentation system has been designed to investigate the relationship between auditory and oral tactile sensory processes without disruption of one or both sensory channels. This instrumentation can be employed to obtain judgments of auditory and oral tactile sensation magnitudes by the psychophysical scaling methods of magnitude estimation and cross‐modality matching. Magnitude estimation scaling requires the subject to assign numbers to subjectively match the intensities of different stimulus levels presented by the experimenter. Cross‐modality matching requires the subject to adjust the stimulus intensities applied to one sensory modality to match those applied to another sensory modality by the experimenter. The instrumentation system was tested through a pilot investigation in which lingual vibrotactile and auditory scaling behavior was determined for a group of 20 normal speakers and a group of 10 stutterers. Results suggested that the instrumentation, utilizing the psychophysical scaling methods of magnitude estimation and cross‐modality matching, may serve as a useful research tool for investigating the possible iterations of auditory and oral vibrotactile sensory processes.