Biology subjects

Drewing, K.

Publications and source records attributed to Drewing, K..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Tactile suppression stems from sensation-specific sensorimotor predictions

The ability to sample sensory information with our hands is crucial for smooth and efficient interactions with the world. Despite this important role of touch, tactile sensations on a moving hand are perceived weaker than when presented on the same but stationary hand.1-3 This phenomenon of tactile suppression has been explained by predictive mechanisms, such as forward models, that estimate future sensory states of the body on the basis of the motor command and suppress the associated predicted sensory feedback.4 The origins of tactile suppression have sparked a lot of debate, with contemporary accounts claiming that suppression is independent of predictive mechanisms and is instead akin to unspecific gating.5 Here, we target this debate and provide evidence for sensation-specific tactile suppression due to sensorimotor predictions. Participants stroked with their finger over textured surfaces that caused predictable vibrotactile feedback signals on that finger. Shortly before touching the texture, we applied external vibrotactile probes on the moving finger that either matched or mismatched the frequency generated by the stroking movement. We found stronger suppression of the probes that matched the predicted sensory feedback. These results show that tactile suppression is not limited to unspecific gating but is specifically tuned to the predicted sensory states of a movement.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Sensorimotor temporal recalibration: the contribution of motor-sensory and inter-sensory components

Adaptation to delays between actions and sensory feedback is important for efficiently interacting with our environment. Adaptation may rely on predictions of action-feedback pairing (motor-sensory component), or predictions of tactile-proprioceptive sensation from the action and sensory feedback of the action (inter-sensory component). Reliability of temporal information might differ across sensory feedback modalities (e.g. auditory or visual), influencing adaptation. Here, we investigated the role of motor-sensory and inter-sensory components on sensorimotor temporal recalibration for motor-auditory events (button press-tone) and motor-visual events (button press-Gabor patch). In the adaptation phase of the experiment, the motor action-feedback event pairs were presented with systematic temporal delays (0ms or 150ms). In the subsequent test phase, sensory feedback of the action were presented with variable delays. The participants were then asked whether this delay could be detected. To disentangle motor-sensory from inter-sensory component, we varied movements (active button press or passive depression of button) at adaptation and test. Our results suggest that motor-auditory recalibration is mainly driven by motor-sensory component, whereas motor-visual recalibration is mainly driven by inter-sensory component. Recalibration transferred from vision to audition, but not from audition to vision. These results indicate that motor-sensory and inter-sensory components of recalibration are weighted in a modality-dependent manner.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Materials in action: The look and feel of soft

The softness of objects can be perceived through several senses. For instance, to judge the softness of our cats fur, we do not only look at it, we also run our fingers in idiosyncratic ways through its coat. Recently, we have shown that haptically perceived softness covaries with the compliance, viscosity, granularity, and furriness of materials (Dovencioglu et al.,2020). However, it is unknown whether vision can provide similar information about the various aspects of perceived softness. Here, we investigated this question in an experiment with three conditions: in the haptic condition, blindfolded participants explored materials with their hands, in the visual-static condition participants were presented with close-up photographs of the same materials, and in the visual-dynamic condition participants watched videos of the hand-material interactions that were recorded in the haptic condition. After haptically or visually exploring the materials participants rated them on various attributes. Our results show a high overall perceptual correspondence between the three experimental conditions. With a few exceptions, this correspondence tended to be strongest between haptic and visual-dynamic conditions. These results are discussed with respect to information potentially available through the senses, or through prior experience, when judging the softness of materials.

neuroscience↗