Humans ; Touch ; Touch Perception

Touch ; Signal Transduction ; Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled ; Touch Perception

In this study, a recall experiment and a recognition experiment were designed to assess the human wrist's short-term memory characteristics of tactile perception on vibration intensity, by using a novel homemade vibrotactile display device based on the spatiotemporal combination vibration of multiple micro vibration motors as a test device. Based on the obtained experimental data, the short-term memory span, recognition accuracy and reaction time of vibration intensity were analyzed. From the experimental results, some important conclusions can be made: (1) The average short-term memory span of tactile perception on vibration intensity is 3 ± 1 items; (2) The greater difference between two adjacent discrete intensities of vibrotactile stimulation is defined, the better average short-term memory span human wrist gets; (3) There is an obvious difference of the average short-term memory span on vibration intensity between the male and female; (4) The mechanism of information extraction in short-term memory of vibrotactile display is to traverse the scanning process by comparison; (5) The recognition accuracy and reaction time performance of vibrotactile display compares unfavourably with that of visual and auditory. The results from this study are important for designing vibrotactile display coding scheme.
Female ; Humans ; Male ; Memory, Short-Term ; Reaction Time ; Touch ; Touch Perception ; Vibration ; Wrist

This paper discusses the short-term memory of vibro-tactile perception of human fingertips. By using a self-developed vibro-tactile expression device, a recall experiment was firstly carried out among 20 subjects aged 20-30 (10 males and 10 females) to discover the memory span about the vibro-tactile perception of human fingertips. Within this memory span, a cognitive experiment analyzing the recognition accuracy and the reaction time was carried out. The results showed: (1) The vibro-tactile memory span of human fingertip is 4 ± 1; (2) The vibro-tactile memory span increases as the discrete intensity between vibration stimuli increases; (3) Too long or too short vibration duration will reduce the vibro-tactile memory span, and the optimal vibration duration for men is 400 ms, for women is 300 ms; (4) The more the number of vibration stimuli is perceived by the human fingertip, the lower the recognition accuracy and the longer the reaction time it needs; (5) Compared with the vibration stimuli in disorder, people are more likely to remember the vibration stimuli in increasing/decreasing order; (6) The information extraction mechanism of the short-term memory about fingertip vibro-tactile perception bases a point to point scanning process among these stimuli. These results help to understand the human fingertip tactile characteristics and provide a physiological basis for the study of tactile feedback technologies.
Adult ; Female ; Fingers ; Humans ; Male ; Memory, Short-Term ; Touch ; Touch Perception ; Vibration ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of hand holding on self-esteem and assertiveness in women patients with depression. METHODS: This study was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The participants were 40 women patients who were hospitalized with depression. Twenty of the women patients with depression were assigned to the experimental group (hand holding), and twenty to the control group. For the experimental treatment group hand holding was done for 2 wks. RESULTS: The experimental group with hand holding showed an increase in self-esteem (t=3.99, p<.001), and assertiveness (t=5.37, p<.001) compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: Hand holding is effective for increasing self-esteem and assertiveness in women patients with depression. The simple contact of hand holding can also be regarded as an effective and accessible nursing intervention in the neuropsychiatry ward.
Assertiveness* ; Depression* ; Female ; Hand* ; Humans ; Neuropsychiatry ; Nursing ; Therapeutic Touch

Child Development ; Female ; Humans ; Infant Behavior ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Touch

Cartridge cases are crucial physical evidence in gun-related crimes. The successful identification of the touch DNA on cartridge cases can help to screen the suspects and reconstruct the gun-related crime scene. With the improvement of DNA extraction methods and the sensitivity of amplification kit, forensic examiners are expected to obtain more valuable information by testing the touch DNA on cartridge cases. In practical cases, the touch DNA detection on cartridge cases often encounters with low DNA content degradation, mixing and the gunshot residual interference, which brings more challenges to DNA examination and identification. This article reviews forensic research of touch DNA on the cartridge cases from the aspects of factors affecting touch DNA on cartridge cases, advances in the extraction and amplification methods, and the practical applications in order to provide reference for forensic identification of touch DNA on the cartridge cases in real cases.
Crime ; DNA/genetics* ; DNA Fingerprinting ; Forensic Genetics ; Touch

OBJECTIVETo investigate the role of activated brain regions in Parkinson's disease (PD) during tactile stimulation.

METHODSTwenty-one patients with early PD[mean age (60.43 +/-9.65)y] and twenty-two age-matched healthy controls [mean age (59.23 +/-11.12)y] were enrolled in the study. All the patients were tested by the United Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) as the evaluation of the disease severity. A block design was used when the finger tactile stimulation was given to the subjects. The hypoactive and hyperactive regions of PD patients were confirmed first, which were identified as regions of interest (ROI). ROI analysis was performed to quantify BOLD signal changes when subjects were under tactile stimulation. The correlations of signal changes with disease severity, and correlations of hyperactive with hypoactive regions were analyzed.

RESULTSRight primary sensory and motor cortex, right supplementary motor area (SMA), bilateral caudates, bilateral precuneus, bilateral occipital visual cortex and left middle temporal gyrus were hypoactivated in PD, while right prefrontal cortex (PFC) and right caudate were hyperactivated. The hypoactivation of right SMA was negatively correlated with disease severity. All the hypoactive and hyperactive regions were positively correlated with activation of caudates. There was a positive correlation between hyperactive PFC and hypoactive regions.

CONCLUSIONSThe signal change of SMA is directly related to disease severity in early PD, and caudates may play a significant role in PD tactile processing. The hyperactivation of PFC may be not a compensation but a pathophysiological change related to PD neural dysfunction.

Aged ; Brain ; physiopathology ; Female ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Mechanoreceptors ; physiology ; Middle Aged ; Parkinson Disease ; physiopathology ; Severity of Illness Index ; Time Factors ; Touch ; physiology ; Touch Perception ; physiology

This study examined the types of touch received by elderly patients from nurses, and explored the elderly patient' and nurses' perceptions of touch occurring during nursing activities. Non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews were the methods employed for data collection. The study subjects were composed of 24 nurses of the three medical wards, and their 83 elderly patients who were hospitalized at S Hospital in Seoul from February 15th to March 15th in 1996. The Observation Schedule, the Perception of Touch Instrument, and the Patient classification were study instruments. The most common types of touch occurring during the nurse-elderly patient interactions were : task touch(82.9%), caring touch(4.9%), and concurrent type of touch (12.2%). The mean score of the elderly patients' perception of touch was higher at 30.45(range 5-35)compared to the mean score of the nurses' perception of touch which was 23.01(range 5-35). Elderly patients received the nurses' touch much more positively than the nurses. But the two scores were not significantly correlated(r=.06, 29). The elderly patient's touch perception score was higher(p<.05) in the group that was touched upon approach than the group was touched later. Elderly patients preferred caring touch to task touch, but it was not significant. Nurses' touch perception scores were higher(p<.05) for female than male. Elderly patients felt most comfortable when the nurses administered the touch on their painful site.
Aged ; Appointments and Schedules ; Classification ; Data Collection ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Nursing ; Seoul ; Touch Perception

In this paper, we used the eletrotactile vision substitution system designed by ourselves to display Chinese characters on the 16x16 electrode array through some simple image processing algorithms and multiplexing technology. Based on this, simple Chinese character recognition experiment was conducted. The result of the experiment shows that the electrotactile vision substitution is a feasible solution for the blind to read simple Chinese characters and the result also solidifies the foundation of further study about more complex real-time image electrotactile display.
Algorithms ; Communication Aids for Disabled ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Language ; Touch ; Vision, Ocular