Freezing in Touch: Sound Enhances Tactile Perception

Perceptual segregation in rapidly changing visual displays can be facilitated by a synchronized salient sound that segregates itself from other sounds in the sequence (Vroomen & de Gelder, 2000). We examined whether this “freezing” phenomenon can also be found in tactile perception. Three vibrators were placed on the participant's palm to produce four different tactile patterns. Four sounds were presented separately and simultaneously with each of the four tactile patterns. Among the three same-pitch tones, an abrupt high-pitch tone was presented simultaneously with the designated temporal position of the target pattern in the sequence of tactual stimuli that was presented rapidly and repeatedly. The task was to identify the tactile pattern of the target. Results showed that participants responded faster and more accurately with the high-pitch tone, compared to the condition when all the tones were of the same pitch. However, the result reversed when an extra tactile cue was presented on the wrist. This suggests that a salient auditory signal can improve perceptual segregation not only in vision but also in touch. That is, it is a cross-modal facilitation, not an alerting or attentional cueing effect