PURPOSE Tactile deficits have been understudied in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) using a limited range of tactile assessments. This study aims to characterize performance across a comprehensive battery of tactile registration and perception assessments in children with UCP and typically developing children (TDC). METHODS Fifty-two children with UCP (Gross Motor Function Classi...

This thesis presents the design and development of several tactile displays, as well as their eventual integration into a framework of tactile and kinesthetic stimulation. As a basis for the design of novel devices, an extensive survey of existing actuator principles and existing realizations of tactile displays is complemented by neurobiological and psychophysical findings. The work is structu...

OBJECTIVES Loss of foot sensitivity is a relevant parameter to assess and prevent in several diseases. It is crucial to determine the vibro-tactile sensitivity threshold response to acute conditions to explore innovative monitor tools and interventions to prevent and treat this challenge. The aims were: 1) to analyze the acute effects of a single whole body vibration session (4min-18Hz-4mm) on ...

The perception threshold for trains of rapid tactile pulses, applied to the index finger, has been measured in patients with parietal lobe lesions and in patients with median nerve lesions. The former patients had increased perception thresholds for single tactile pulses on the abnormal side. With successively prolonged pulse trains, the threshold decreased exponentially to reach a stable level...

Abnormalities in tactile perception, such as sensory defensiveness, are common features in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While not a diagnostic criterion for ASD, deficits in tactile perception contribute to the observed lack of social communication skills. However, the influence of tactile perception deficits on the development of social behaviors remains uncertain, as do the effects on neur...

Previous research has shown that odorants consistently evoke associations with textures and their tactile properties like smoothness and roughness. Also, it has been observed that olfaction can modulate tactile perception. We therefore hypothesized that tactile roughness perception may be biased towards the somatosensory connotation of an ambient odorant. We performed two experiments to test th...

Tactation is the sensation perceived by the sense of touch. Kinesthetic information describes the relative positions and movements of body parts as well as muscular effort when touching and manipulating objects. Haptic perception involves both tactile perception through the skin and kinesthetic perception of the position and movement of the joints and muscles,through the skin of our fingers and...

We propose a new approach for converting graphical and pictorial information into tactile patterns that can be displayed in a static or dynamic tactile device. The key components of the proposed approach are (1) an algorithm that segments a scene into perceptually uniform segments; (2) a procedure for generating perceptually distinct tactile patterns; and (3) a mapping of the visual textures of...