Moving one hand, feeling with the other: Movement information transfer L Dupin, M Wexler |
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Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS/Université Paris Descartes, France
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| When we move a finger along an object with the eyes closed, we can sometimes identify its shape, size and orientation in space. However, the information available at every moment only includes the sensation corresponding to a small part of the object. To perceive the spatial properties of the entire object the brain must match the information about the finger's movement with the successive local sensations. Usually the movement and the tactile sensation that are matched originate from the same body part - but is this a necessary condition for haptic perception? In this study, we tested the extent to which there is transfer of movement information between the left and right hands. We could have expected three different results. There could be no transfer at all. Alternatively, the brain could find a "plausible explanation": one would feel as if the moving hand were sliding an object under the stationary, feeling hand. Finally, the brain could integrate the movement and sensory information independently of their sources. Our findings support the last hypothesis: the movement information of one hand is integrated with sensory information from the other hand into a single percept, as if they came from the same hand. |
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