The impact of movement sonification on haptic perception changes with aging

C Landelle,S Ystad,Anne Kavounoudias,F Giraud,J Danna,M Aramaki,M Amberg,L Pruvost,R Kronland-Martinet,B Nazarian

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-84581-3

Abstract

Combining multisensory sources is crucial to interact with our environment, especially for older people who are facing sensory declines. Here, we examined the influence of textured sounds on haptic exploration of artificial textures in healthy younger and older adults by combining a tactile device (ultrasonic display) with synthetized textured sounds. Participants had to discriminate simulated textures with their right index while they were distracted by three disturbing, more or less textured sounds. These sounds were presented as a real-time auditory feedback based on finger movement sonification and thus gave the sensation that the sounds were produced by the haptic exploration. Finger movement velocity increased across both groups in presence of textured sounds (Rubbing or Squeaking) compared to a non-textured (Neutral) sound. While young adults had the same discrimination threshold, regardless of the sound added, the older adults were more disturbed by the presence of the textured sounds with respect to the Neutral sound. Overall, these findings suggest that irrelevant auditory information was taken into account by all participants, but was appropriately segregated from tactile information by young adults. Older adults failed to segregate auditory information, supporting the hypothesis of general facilitation of multisensory integration with aging.

Highlights

Combining multisensory sources is crucial to interact with our environment, especially for older people who are facing sensory declines
The high density of cutaneous mechanoreceptors at the pulp of the fingers can accurately encode the spatial variations of the surface and the vibrations elicited by the finger movement on the surface, which are the two main cues used for fine texture p erception[7]
We examined the impact of textured sound on haptic exploration of textures, and in particular age-related changes that have been less investigated, probably due to the technical challenges inherent to the combination of textures and sounds

Summary

Introduction

Combining multisensory sources is crucial to interact with our environment, especially for older people who are facing sensory declines. The erroneous perception of the number of visual flashes due to the simultaneous presentation of a different number of auditory beeps, called sound-induced flash illusion, is more experienced by older p eople[29] This age-related difference could be related to changes in attentional processing or in sensory integrative mechanism in older people. We examined the impact of textured sound on haptic exploration of textures, and in particular age-related changes that have been less investigated, probably due to the technical challenges inherent to the combination of textures and sounds To address these questions, we developed an innovative approach allowing the simultaneous fine modulation of tactile and auditory textured stimuli by combining a texture simulation device (StimTac) with a sound synthesizer based on perceptually relevant acoustic m orphologies[34,35,36]. As a facilitation of multisensory integration as well as a greater impact of sensory distraction were observed with aging, we expected that the older adults tested here should be more affected by the presence of the two textured sounds than the younger adults

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion