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APPENDIX
Perception and interpretation of cutaneous stimuli
applied to the same tactile receptive field for
different posture and different orientation of the
body segment in question can yield valuable data
about the perceptual and gnostic functions during the
learning process in order to achieve tactile shape
recognition. The studies were conducted on 17
subjects. Two postures (see figure 9) were studied:
the vertical (1, 2) and horizontal positions (3, 4).
For each posture two conditions were examined:
with the right leg extended (1, 3) and during flexion
of the right leg at 90° between hip and knee joints
(2, 4).
In each situation, one of the 4 tactile stimuli was
presented: digits and simple geometric shapes (see
Figure 9). The TC was fixed on the frontal surface of
the right tight with Velcro strips. The results show
that the task of identification of complex tactile
stimuli was not affected by modification of posture
relative to the vertical gravitational body. However,
an increase in the frequency of errors was observed
when the leg was flexed: the part of the figure
closest the knee was perceived as being on top. It is
important to note that with more or less intensive
training, we observed a related improvement in the
task.
Information about the configuration of the body
part is taken into account during the stages of
processing the tactile signal.
Figure 9: Schematisation of the tactile stimuli (left) and
the postural conditions (right) (from Lepelley et al., 2005).
TACTILE GUIDANCE OF THE HAND IN A BLIND POINTING TASK: "THE TACTILE COMPASS" - Tactile
Compass in a Blind Pointing Task
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