Graduate Center for Vision Research, State University of New York College of Optometry, New York, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011 May 10;6(5):e19877. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019877.
Vision generally provides reliable predictions for touch and motor-control, but some classes of stimuli evoke visual illusions. Using haptic feedback on virtual 3-D surfaces, we tested the function of touch in such cases. Our experiments show that in the perception of 3-D shapes from texture cues, haptic information can dominate vision in some cases, changing percepts qualitatively from convex to concave and concave to slant. The effects take time to develop, do not outlive the cessation of the feedback, are attenuated by distance, and drastically reduced by gaps in the surface. These dynamic shifts in qualitative perceived shapes could be invaluable in neural investigations that test whether haptic feedback modifies selective activation of neurons or changes the shape-tuning of neurons responsible for percepts of 3-D shapes.
视觉通常可以为触觉和运动控制提供可靠的预测，但某些类别的刺激会引起视觉错觉。我们使用虚拟 3-D 表面上的触觉反馈来测试触觉在这种情况下的功能。我们的实验表明，在通过纹理线索感知 3-D 形状的过程中，在某些情况下，触觉信息可以主导视觉，从而从质上改变感知，将凸面变为凹面，将凹面变为倾斜。这些效果需要时间才能形成，在反馈停止后不会持续存在，会随着距离的增加而减弱，并且表面上的间隙会大大减小。这些定性感知形状的动态变化在神经研究中可能非常有价值，这些研究测试触觉反馈是否会改变神经元的选择性激活，或者改变负责感知 3-D 形状的神经元的形状调谐。
