EFFECTS OF STIMULUS-DURATION ON THE AMPLITUDE DIFFERENCE LIMEN FOR VIBROTACTION

Vibrotactile amplitude difference limens (DLs) were measured by the co ntinuous pedestal and gated pedestal methods. In both cases, the relat ive DL decreased as a function of the intensity of the stimulus and th e results, in most cases, could be described as a near miss to Weber's law. DLs measured by the continuous pedestal method were found to dec rease substantially as a function of increases in stimulus duration ov er a range of 12 to 1000 ms. In contrast, DLs measured by the gated pe destal method were only slightly affected by changes in stimulus durat ion. It was concluded that the process of temporal summation can manif est itself in reducing the size of the DL in the continuous pedestal, but not the gated pedestal, paradigm. (C) 1996 Acoustical Society of A merica.