Experiments have been carried out to investigate the information trans
fer available via a single vibrator on the fingertip. In a first exper
iment, for stimuli with durations 80 to 320 ms, discrimination of a on
e-octave step change in frequency at the halfway point was investigate
d. Results were similar for three stimulus types-sinewave, monophasic
pulse and tetraphasic pulse-suggesting temporal cues are more importan
t than spectral cues in this task. In a second experiment, subjects we
re required to perceive changes in a sequence of stimulus elements. A
presentation rate of 6.25 elements s(-1) was found to give better resu
lts than a rate of 12.5 elements s(-1). In the former case, the potent
ial information transfer per element was estimated to be approximately
1.0 bits, corresponding to an information transfer rate of around 6 b
its s(-1). Implications for the design of a tactile aid to lipreading
an discussed. (C) 1997 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(97)0
4111-8].