Neural coding of tactile texture: comparison of spatial and temporal mechanisms for roughness perception
Open accessAbstract
A previous study showed that roughness perception may depend on either temporal or spatial variations in firing rate among cutaneous mechanoreceptive afferents. The present study was designed to distinguish between these hypotheses. Plastic surfaces embossed with patterns of dots designed to produce predictable alterations in temporal and spatial firing rate variation were used as stimuli in psychophysical and neurophysiological experiments. Subjective roughness magnitudes obtained from psychophysical experiments fitted the predictions of the spatial but not the temporal hypothesis. In the neurophysiological experiments, the stimuli were scanned across the receptive fields of cutaneous mechanoreceptive afferents. Firing rate variation in the neural responses was measured using a range of temporal and spatial filters. Temporal variation was not correlated with roughness magnitude. Spatial variation, on a scale of 1–2 mm (one to two receptor spacings), was closely correlated with roughness.
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Coarse textural features are encoded in the spatial pattern of activation in SA1 and perhaps also RA afferents.
“Coarse textural features are encoded in the spatial pattern of activation in SA1 and perhaps also RA afferents (Connor et al., 1990;Connor and Johnson, 1992).”
From Biomimetic approaches to bionic touch through a peripheral nerve interface (2015) · cites this paper as Connor and Johnson, 1992
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- Authors
- Connor, C., & Johnson, K.
- Affiliations
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 1992-09-01
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 3414-3426
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC6575720
- OpenAlex
- W1759209953
- Cited by
- 300
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 1.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS18787, R01NS018787)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Keywords
- tactile texture, roughness perception, neural coding, cutaneous mechanoreceptors, spatial coding, temporal coding, receptive fields, dot patterns, psychophysics
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Electrophysiology, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Male, Mechanoreceptors, Neurons, Afferent, Neurophysiology, Perception, Psychophysics, Skin Physiological Phenomena, Surface Properties, Time Factors, Touch
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