Psychophysical comparison of the auditory and tactile perception: a survey

In this paper, the psychophysical abilities and limitations of the auditory and vibrotactile modality will be discussed. A direct comparison reveals similarities and differences. The knowledge of those is the basis for the design of perceptually optimized auditory-tactile human-machine interfaces or multimodal music applications. Literature data and own results for psychophysical characteristics are summarized. An overview of the absolute perception thresholds of both modalities is given. The main factors which influence these thresholds are discussed: age, energy integration, masking and adaptation. Subsequently, the differential sensitivity (discrimination of intensity, frequency, temporal aspects and location) for suprathreshold signals is compared.