INTEGRATION OF VISUAL AND TACTILE MODALITIES

Experiments have been carried out in which subjects were required to d iscriminate time-varying visual and tactile stimuli presented simultan eously via a 2D array of light-emitting diodes and a vibrator on the f ingertip. Contrary to expectations, no problems in parallel visual and tactile perception were apparent. Similar results were obtained in a second experiment in which subjects were require to lipread from a vid eo image and simultaneously identify speech-derived tactile stimuli. T he generally poor performance of tactile aids to lipreading has been a ttributed to problems of parallel perception, but such problems are cl early not present in all circumstances.