Psychophysiological measurements during tactile speech identification and discrimination tests

A large nurober of investigations have been undertaken to develop technical systems in order to enable a tactile substitution of speech for the deaf. These aids have been evaluated with various experimental procedures (identification and discrimination tests, learning experiments, tracking procedures and other overt behaviour methods). In order to find additional evidence for the processing and perception of such stimuli, in the present experiment psychophysiolog!cal responses during identification and discrimination tests using tactile speech stimuli were recorded. A 3factorial ANOVA-des!gn was used to evaluate test condition, task condition and habituation during the presentation of tactile speech stimuli. Besides the Ss' identification and discrimination answers, eye blink rate {BR) was registered and electrodermal activity {EDA) measured on both hands concomitantly. The results show that both psychophysiological measures (EDA and BR) very sensitively differentiate various task conditions. Blink rate clearly reflects a difference in the processing of identification and discrimination.