Seeing How You Feel: Multisensory Enhancement Of Touch In Ageing

触觉感知对于感觉形状、纹理和材料、识别脏与干净的表面、平衡很重要，它可以唤起详细的记忆或情感。辨别物体表面的形状和细节的能力对于辨别钱包里的硬币、检测织物的质量或磨损程度、检测盘子或物体表面上的灰尘微粒等任务都很重要。从手指皮肤上接收高质量的信息有助于穿衣（特别是钮扣或扣扣）、贴邮票或标签以及识别物体或形状。通过指尖感知振动的能力对于感知木材或纸张等表面的精细细节非常重要，并且越来越多地用于丰富触摸屏的体验。在我们最近与（健康）老年人举办的一系列艺术家工作坊中，有人说，一个没有丰富触觉体验的世界是乏味的。触觉感知能力随着年龄的增长而下降。我们才刚刚开始了解这是如何发生的，但我们知道，随着年龄的增长，皮肤变得更干燥，弹性更弱，皮肤中受体的数量和密度也会减少。触觉的神经和皮层机制也有缺失。即使在健康的人群中，也有许多经历会降低触觉灵敏度（如中风、神经退行性疾病、疤痕和老茧）。不太清楚的是，这对触摸体验和日常活动有何影响。在这个项目中，我们的目标是将来自爱尔兰和英国的专家聚集在一起，讨论如何测量和理解触摸感知，特别是在衰老方面。这两个国家有互补的活动和专业。一方面，爱尔兰有宝贵的纵向数据集和多学科分析团队，可以深入了解老龄化过程对感官和多感官感知的作用（例如，爱尔兰老龄化纵向研究（TILDA），独立生活技术（TRIL）项目）。另一方面，在英国，有一些团队结合计算模型，从行为和心理物理角度研究触摸敏感性。该项目将汇集这些领域的专家，以及来自行业的相关方和有实际经验的人的重要意见，以解决接触研究问题。我们已经确定了对触觉的多感官影响是一个特殊的关注领域。仅仅是能够看到被触摸的物品就可以增强人们辨别触摸表面差异的能力。重要的是，这是正确的，即使表面的细节是不可感知的。我们还知道，一些表面在被抚摸或摩擦时会发出特有的声音，这也会影响它们的感觉：例如，嘎吱声或褶皱会使表面看起来更粗糙或更粗糙。这可能是有价值的，因为我们的目标是增强或改善老年人或触摸感知能力下降的人的触摸体验。随着年龄的增长，我们更有可能自动结合来自多种感官的信息，所以研究多感官触摸是有希望的。在这个项目中，我们计划以研究为重点的研讨会和密集的写作静修活动，以制定目标和计划，在两国效仿，以扩大覆盖面和能力。这些活动将在主要代表团体的参与和参与下进行，特别是老年人，以及潜在的行业合作伙伴，以确保未来的触觉感知计划考虑到提出的相关问题。这将与艺术家推动的社区研讨会和小组讨论相结合，参与者将反思他们不断变化的触摸体验，并为未来工作的优先事项做出贡献。这些将有助于在项目和进一步的工作中更好、更相关地理解触摸，由老年人指导和共同创造。

Touch perception is important for feeling shapes, textures and materials, for identifying dirty vs clean surfaces, for balance and it can evoke detailed memories or emotions. Being able to discriminate form and detail on surfaces is important for tasks such as discriminating coins in a purse, detecting the quality or wear of fabric, or detecting fine particles of dirt on dishes or surfaces. Receiving high quality information from the skin on fingers helps when dressing (especially for buttons or clasps), sticking stamps or labels and identifying objects or shapes. The ability to sense vibration through the fingertips is important to sense fine detail on surfaces such as wood or paper, and increasingly used to enrich the experience of touch screens. In our recent series of artist facilitated workshops with (healthy) older people it was remarked that a world without a rich experience of tactile texture is bland and dull.Touch perception declines with age. We are only beginning to understand how this happens but we know that the skin becomes drier and less elastic with age and the number and density of receptors in the skin reduces. There are also losses in the neural and cortical mechanisms for touch. Even in otherwise healthy people, there are many experiences that can reduce touch sensitivity (from conditions such as stroke, neurodegenerative conditions, scarring and callouses). What is less clear is how this impacts on the experience of touch and day to day activities. In this project we aim to bring together experts from Ireland and the UK to address how touch perception can be both measured and understood, especially with respect to ageing. There are complementary activities and specialisms in the two countries. On the one hand there are valuable longitudinal datasets and multidisciplinary, analytical teams in Ireland providing insights into the role of the ageing process on the senses and multisensory perception (e.g. The Irish Longitudinal study on Ageing (TILDA), the Technology for Independent Living (TRIL) project). On the other hand, in the UK there are teams investigating touch sensitivity behaviourally and psychophysically, combined with computational modelling. This project will bring specialists from these areas, together with interested parties from industry and critical input from those with lived experience to address research in touch.We have identified multisensory influences on touch as a particular area of focus. Simply being able to see the item being touched can enhance the ability of people to discriminate differences in a touched surface. Importantly, this is true even if the details of the surface are not perceivable. We also know that some surfaces make a characteristic sound as they are stroked or rubbed, and this too influences how they feel: a crunch or a crinkle can make a surface seem rougher or more scratchy for example. This could be valuable as we aim to enhance or improve the experience of touch for older people or those with reduced touch perception. As we age, we are more likely to automatically combine information from multiple senses, so investigating multisensory touch holds promise. In this project we plan research focused workshops together with a intensive writing retreat to set goals and plan, mirrored across both countries to increase reach and capacity. These activities will occur with engagement and involvement of key representative groups, particularly older people but also potential industry partners, to ensure that future programmes on tactile perception take account of pertinent issues raised. This will be integrated with artist facilitated community workshops and panel discussions where participants will reflect on their changing experience of touch and contribute to priority setting for future work. These will build towards a better and more relevant understanding of touch within the project and further work, directed and co-created by older people.