From Human-to-Human Touch to Peripheral Nerve Responses

Auteur-es

Steven C. Hauser, Saad S. Nagi, Sarah McIntyre, Ali Israr, Håkan Olausson, Gregory J. Gerling

Nombre Auteurs

6

Titre

From Human-to-Human Touch to Peripheral Nerve Responses

Année de publication

2019

Référence (APA)

Hauser, S. C., & Gerling, G. J. (2019). From Human-to-Human Touch to Peripheral Nerve Responses. https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC.2019.8816113

résumé

Human-to-human touch conveys rich, meaningful social and emotional sentiment. At present, however, we understand neither the physical attributes that underlie such touch, nor how the attributes evoke responses in unique types of peripheral afferents. Indeed, nearly all electrophysiological studies use well-controlled but non-ecological stimuli. Here, we develop motion tracking and algorithms to quantify physical attributes – indentation depth, shear velocity, contact area, and distance to the cutaneous sensory space (receptive field) of the afferent – underlying human-to-human touch. In particular, 2-D video of the scene is combined with 3-D stereo infrared video of the toucher’s hand to measure contact interactions local to the receptive field of the receiver’s afferent. The combined and algorithmically corrected measurements improve accuracy, especially of occluded and misidentified fingers. Human subjects experiments track a toucher performing four gestures – single finger tapping, multi-finger tapping, multi-finger stroking and whole hand holding – while action potentials are recorded from a first-order afferent of the receiver. A case study with one rapidly-adapting (Pacinian) and one C-tactile afferent examines temporal ties between gestures and elicited action potentials. The results indicate this method holds promise in determining the roles of unique afferent types in encoding social and emotional touch attributes in their naturalistic delivery.

URL

https://research.facebook.com/file/4403572442996784/From-Human-to-Human-Touch-to-Peripheral-Nerve-Responses.pdf

doi

https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC.2019.8816113

Accessibilité de l'article

Libre

Champ

AR/VR

Type contenu (théorique Applicative méthodologique)

Méthodologique, applicatif

Méthode

The method involves using motion tracking and algorithms to quantify physical attributes of human-to-human touch, while recording action potentials from a first-order afferent of the receiver. Human subjects experiments track a toucher performing four gestures while action potentials are recorded from the receiver's afferent.

"Human-to-human contact, between a toucher’s hand and the receiver’s arm or hand, was measured using a motion tracking system consisting of both a 2-D high definition video camera and a 3-D stereo infrared device"

Cas d'usage

N/A

Objectifs de l'article

The objectives of the article are to develop a method for studying the physical attributes of human-to-human touch and to examine the roles of unique afferent types in encoding social and emotional touch attributes in their naturalistic delivery.

Question(s) de recherche/Hypothèses/conclusion

The hypothesis is that the method developed in this study will hold promise in determining the roles of unique afferent types in encoding social and emotional touch attributes in their naturalistic delivery.

The conclusions are that the method developed in this study improves accuracy in measuring physical attributes of human-to-human touch and "holds promise in determining the roles of unique afferent types in encoding social and emotional touch attributes in their naturalistic delivery."

Cadre théorique/Auteur.es

The theoretical framework of the article is centered around the study of human-to-human touch and the encoding of social and emotional touch attributes by unique afferent types. The main authors cited are S. S. Nagi, S. McIntyre, and H. Olausson.

Concepts clés

Human-to-human touch, Afferents, Social and emotional touch, Motion tracking, algorithms, and electrophysiological studies.

Données collectées (type source)

The type of data collected is from the hand position and electrophysiological data from a first-order afferent of the receiver to be able to look at 4 touch attributes : contact, depht, contact area and shear velocity.

Définition des émotions

Non

Ampleur expérimentation (volume de comptes)

2 participants

Technologies associées

Motion tracking and 3D stereo infrared video.

Mention de l'éthique

Yes, there is mention of ethics. Informed consent was obtained from participants and the study was approved by the ethics committee of Linköping University.

Finalité communicationnelle

Be able to communicate through touch ? (We can think VR/AR, metaverse)