Tactile sensitivity to missing tones in complex vibrotactile signals

Haptic interactions with objects induce complex vibrotactile signals that are central to tactile perception. Despite the broad literature on vibrotactile perception, surprisingly little is known about the sensory processing of complex tactile signals made of multiple pure tones. To fill this gap, the study reported here investigated the impact of the constitutive pure tones of a complex vibrotactile signal on its perception. Participants completed a three-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) task in which they were asked to identify an odd signal among two complex references. The odd signal was created by removing one pure tone from the reference, which varied in spectral composition, harmonicity, and interfrequency intervals. Each reference signal was made of either two, three, or four pure tones. The results revealed that the removed pure tone's value as well as the interfrequency interval play a significant role in participants' performance whereas changes in harmonicity and complexity have little impact. The smaller the ratio between the removed frequency and the lowest one of the reference signals, the better the participants' capacity to identify the signal with the missing tone. As this ratio correlates with that of pure tone's perceived intensity, participants' performance can be linked to either of them. Analysis of a subset of complex signals made of pure tones perceived with roughly equal intensity showed that the correlation still holds but slightly decreases. Overall, these results suggest that perception of complex vibrations might be mediated by tactile mechanisms related to both frequency selectivity and pure tones' perceived intensity.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This research investigates the respective roles of frequency range, harmonicity, and complexity on human perception of vibrotactile signals. The results revealed that only pure tones that are close to the lower frequencies of the complex vibration are noticed when they are missing. This finding sheds new light on the mechanisms underlying the tactile perception of complex vibrations.