Bilateral Tactile Anisotropy 1 RUNNING HEAD: Bilateral Tactile Anisotropy Bilateral Symmetry of Distortions of Tactile Size Perception

Bilateral Symmetry of Distortions of Tactile Size Perception.

The perceived distance between touches on the limbs is generally bigger for distances oriented across the width of the limb than for distances oriented along the length of the limb. The present study aimed to investigate the coherence of such distortions of tactile size perception across different skin surfaces. We investigated distortions of tactile size perception on the dorsal and palmar sur...

CATEGORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE BODY 1 RUNNING HEAD: CATEGORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE BODY Categorical perception of tactile distance

The tactile surface forms a continuous sheet covering the body. And yet, the perceived distance between two touches varies across stimulation sites. Perceived tactile distance is larger when stimuli cross over the wrist, compared to when both fall on either the hand or the forearm. This effect could reflect a categorical distortion of tactile space across body-part boundaries (in which stimuli ...

Weber's illusion and body shape: anisotropy of tactile size perception on the hand.

The perceived distance between touches on a single skin surface is larger on regions of high tactile sensitivity than those with lower acuity, an effect known as Weber's illusion. This illusion suggests that tactile size perception involves a representation of the perceived size of body parts preserving characteristics of the somatosensory homunculus. Here, we investigated how body shape is cod...

Seeing the Body Distorts Tactile Size Perception 1 RUNNING HEAD: Seeing the Body Distorts Tactile Size Perception Seeing the Body Distorts Tactile Size Perception

Bilateral Discrimination of Tactile Patterns without Whisking in Freely Running Rats.

A majority of whisker discrimination tasks in rodents are performed on head-fixed animals to facilitate tracking or control of the sensory inputs. However, head fixation critically restrains the behavior and thus the incoming stimuli compared with those occurring in natural conditions. In this study, we investigated whether freely behaving rats can discriminate fine tactile patterns while runni...