Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex. This...

Sensory Modalities

Sensory Modalities

Sensation typically is the process by which the sensory receptors and sense organs detect stimuli from the internal and external environment and transmit this information to the central nervous system for processing.
General senses refer to the broad category of sensory information detected by receptors in the body and can be further grouped into somatic and visceral senses. Somatic sensations include touch, pressure, temperature, and pain and are essential for navigating our environment and...

Synesthesia

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a remarkable condition where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with synesthesia experience a blending or crossing of their senses, such as sight and sound, leading to cross-modal sensations. In this condition, the stimulation of one sense, such as hearing a number or musical note, triggers an experience of another sense, like sensing a specific color, taste, or smell. People...

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity reflects the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt and evolve, responding dynamically to learning, experiences, or injury by reorganizing its neural circuitry. This reorganization involves creating new neural connections and refining old ones through a series of biological processes that contribute to the brain's lifelong development and adaptability.

Introduction to Special Senses

Introduction to Special Senses

Sensory receptors play an integral part in comprehending our external and internal environments. They receive diverse stimuli, converting them into the nervous system's electrochemical signals. This conversion occurs as the stimulus alters the sensory neuron's cell membrane potential, instigating the generation of an action potential. This action potential is subsequently transmitted to the central nervous system (CNS), which integrates with other sensory data or higher cognitive functions.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Envisioning the future of the AI research ecosystem.

PNAS nexus·2024

Same author

STEM must meet people where they are.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2023

Same author

Endoscopic resection of GI stromal tumor using full-thickness resection device: tips and tricks.

VideoGIE : an official video journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy·2023

Same author

Innovative partnerships.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2021

Same author

Comparison of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunostain for nonsmall cell lung carcinoma between paired cytological and surgical specimens.

CytoJournal·2019

Same author

Learning concepts when instances never repeat.

Memory & cognition·2018

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Published on: September 8, 2015

Haptic concepts in the blind.

Donald Homa¹, Kanav Kahol, Priyamvada Tripathi

¹Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA. donhoma@asu.edu

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

|May 12, 2009

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Blind individuals acquire haptic concepts comparably to sighted individuals. Both groups demonstrated equivalent classification but differed in recognition memory, with blind subjects uniquely identifying category prototypes.

More Related Videos

A Tactile Automated Passive-Finger Stimulator (TAPS)

A Tactile Automated Passive-Finger Stimulator (TAPS)

Published on: June 3, 2009

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Published on: May 23, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Published on: September 8, 2015

A Tactile Automated Passive-Finger Stimulator (TAPS)

A Tactile Automated Passive-Finger Stimulator (TAPS)

Published on: June 3, 2009

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Published on: May 23, 2019

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Sensory Perception

Background:

Understanding how individuals acquire and process sensory information is crucial for cognitive science.
Haptic perception, the sense of touch, plays a vital role in object recognition and categorization, especially for the blind.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare the acquisition of haptic concepts in blind individuals versus sighted controls.
To investigate differences in categorization and recognition memory between blind and sighted participants using tactile stimuli.

Main Methods:

Participants (blind, sighted blindfolded, sighted touching, sighted only) learned object categories based on shape, size, and texture.
A study/test format was used for initial learning, followed by classification and recognition tests with old, new, and prototype stimuli.
Categories were linearly separable in three dimensions, but no single dimension ensured perfect classification.

Main Results:

Blind subjects learned categories as quickly and effectively as sighted controls.
All groups performed similarly on classification tasks, with prototypes recognized most accurately.
On recognition tests, blind subjects showed fewer false alarms to novel stimuli but a higher rate of false alarms to prototypes.

Conclusions:

Haptic concept acquisition is comparable between blind and sighted individuals.
Differences in recognition memory suggest distinct processing strategies for category prototypes.
Findings contribute to understanding the plasticity of sensory systems and categorization mechanisms.