Experimental and Theoretical Researches of Fine Surface-Texture Discrimination Ability in Tactile Sensation.

本研究由三项研究组成。第一个研究是理论研究，即细微的表面纹理识别位于触觉信息处理系统中。第二个研究是为验证幅度信息假说的有效性而设计的实验，在该假说中，被试利用表面不平整度的幅度信息来区分细小的表面纹理。第三项研究由两个实验组成。本研究旨在探讨皮肤温度和空间总和效应对细微表面纹理辨别能力的影响。研究一发现，触觉信息处理系统分为四个子系统，每个子系统对信息进行相互独立的加工。细微表面纹理识别系统是四个子系统之一。在第二项研究中，进行了垄高辨别实验。如果被试使用刺激的幅度信息来区分脊高，则脊高的差异阈值与精细表面纹理的差异阈值是相同的。实验结果支持幅度信息假说。研究三表明，在细微表面纹理辨别任务中观察到了明显的空间总和，细微表面纹理辨别任务的差异阈值随温度变化不大。

This study consists of three researches. The first research was a theoretical one in wihch the fine surface-texture discrimination was situated in the tactile information processing system. The second research was an experiment designed to prove the validity of the amplitude information hypothesis, in which it was asserted that the subjects discriminated the fine surface texures using the amplitude information of surface unevenness. The third research was composed of two experiments. The purpose of this research was to investigate the spatial summation effects and the skin temperature effects on the discrimination ability of fine surface textures.The first research revealed that the tactile information processing system was classified into four sub-systems which showed mutually independent processing of the information. The fine surface-texture discrimination system was one of the four subsystems. In the second research the experiment of ridge height discrimination was performed. If the subjects discriminated the ridge heights using the amplitude information of the stimuli, the values of the difference thresholds of the ridge heights were the same as the difference threshold values of fine surface-textures. The results of the experiment supported the amplitude information hypothesis. The third research showed that the clear spatial summation was observed in the fine surface-texture discrimination tasks and that there existed little temperature dependent changes in the difference thresholds of fine surface-texture discrimination tasks.