TY - JOUR
T1 - Stretching the skin immediately enhances perceived stiffness and gradually enhances the predictive control of grip force
AU - Farajian, Mor
AU - Leib, Raz
AU - Kossowsky, Hanna
AU - Zaidenberg, Tomer
AU - Mussa-Ivaldi, Ferdinando A.
AU - Nisky, Ilana
AU - Vaadia, Eilon
N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank Amit Milstein, Zhan Fan Quek, and Eli Peretz for their help and advice in designing and building the skin-stretch device, and Guy Avraham for valuable comments on the manuscript. This study is supported by the Binational United-States Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 2016850), by the National Science Foundation (grant no. 1632259), by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 823/15), by the Ministry of Science and Technology (Israel-Italy virtual lab on ‘Artificial Soma-tosensation for Humans and Humanoids’), and by the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the Agricultural, Biological and Cognitive Robotics Initiative of Ben-Gurion University of Negev, Israel. Mor Farajian was supported by the Tzin Fellowship. Hanna Kossowsky was supported by the Lachish Fellowship. Publisher Copyright: © Farajian et al.
PY - 2020/4/1
Y1 - 2020/4/1
N2 - When manipulating objects, we use kinesthetic and tactile information to form an internal representation of their mechanical properties for cognitive perception and for preventing their slippage using predictive control of grip force. A major challenge in understanding the dissociable contributions of tactile and kinesthetic information to perception and action is the natural coupling between them. Unlike previous studies that addressed this question either by focusing on impaired sensory processing in patients or using local anesthesia, we used a behavioral study with a programmable mechatronic device that stretches the skin of the fingertips to address this issue in the intact sensorimotor system. We found that artificial skin-stretch increases the predictive grip force modulation in anticipation of the load force. Moreover, the stretch causes an immediate illusion of touching a harder object that does not depend on the gradual development of the predictive modulation of grip force.
AB - When manipulating objects, we use kinesthetic and tactile information to form an internal representation of their mechanical properties for cognitive perception and for preventing their slippage using predictive control of grip force. A major challenge in understanding the dissociable contributions of tactile and kinesthetic information to perception and action is the natural coupling between them. Unlike previous studies that addressed this question either by focusing on impaired sensory processing in patients or using local anesthesia, we used a behavioral study with a programmable mechatronic device that stretches the skin of the fingertips to address this issue in the intact sensorimotor system. We found that artificial skin-stretch increases the predictive grip force modulation in anticipation of the load force. Moreover, the stretch causes an immediate illusion of touching a harder object that does not depend on the gradual development of the predictive modulation of grip force.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084026331&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.52653
DO - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.52653
M3 - Article
C2 - 32292163
SN - 2050-084X
VL - 9
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
M1 - e52653
ER -