Although sensory problems, including unusual tactile sensitivity, are heavily associated with autism, there is a dearth of rigorous psychophysical research. We compared tactile sensation in adults with autism to controls on the palm and forearm, the latter innervated by low-threshold unmyelinated afferents subserving a social/affiliative…

Everyday environments, even small regions within reach, vary dramatically in terms of material composition. Adapting one's manual behavior to such transitions can be considered to be an important element of skilled action. To investigate the origins of this ability, we presented 8-month-olds (n=24) and 10-month-olds (n=24) hard or soft objects on…

It has been suggested that the inertia tensor governs many instances of haptic perception. However, the evidence is inconclusive because other candidate mechanical parameters (i.e., invariants) were not or were insufficiently controlled for in pertinent experiments. By independently varying all candidate mechanical parameters, the authors were…

People with autism and Asperger syndrome are anecdotally said to be hypersensitive to touch. In two experiments, we measured tactile thresholds and suprathreshold tactile sensitivity in a group of adults with Asperger syndrome. In the first experiment, tactile perceptual thresholds were measured. Two frequencies of vibrotactile stimulation were…

Presents the results of a study concluding that poorer oral stereognostic skills may not be indicative of poor speech performance. (TO)

A study sought to ascertain the effect, if any, exposure to different temperatures would have on an individual's ability to discriminate between different tactile stimuli. Ten young adult males were repeatedly subjected to emersion of their dominant hand in water ranging in temperature from ice, to 105 degrees Fahrenheit (F), in increments of 15…

A STUDY OF PERCEPTION USED A SAMPLE OF 325 CEREBRAL PALSIED CHILDREN (211 WERE SPASTIC, 114 WERE ATHETOID) AND 110 NORMAL CHILDREN. ALL CHILDREN WERE BETWEEN SIX AND 16 YEARS OF AGE AND OF NORMAL INTELLIGENCE. TO INVESTIGATE PERCEPTUAL DISTURBANCES, SIX TESTS WERE ADMINISTERED--THE TACTUAL MOTOR TEST, THE SYRACUSE VISUAL FIGURE BACKGROUND TEST…

Lowenfeld (1945) developed a series of six instruments which could be used to identify perceptual abilities. For this study, the visually oriented person was defined as the objective viewer of the environment, while the haptic person was defined as a person who uses the eyes only when forced to do so and relates to his environment subjectively. He…

Two groups of continuing education students were tested using three of Viktor Lowenfeld's tests of visual-haptic perception. The scores from the three tests were added to yield a score which identified an individual's location on Lowenfeld's visual-haptic continuum. The investigation also uncovered scoring problems with two of the tests which had…

Sixty-nine students in grades 9, 10, and 11 were tested with three of Viktor Lowenfeld's visual-haptic tests in an attempt to ascertain whether students at these levels segregated in a fashion similar to Lowenfeld's sample. Respondents were spread over the visual-haptic continuum as Lowenfeld suggested they should be. However, a large and…

As a child matures from infancy to early childhood, a shift occurs in his sensory hierarchy from tactile to auditory to visual. The transition between the predominance of the auditory sense and visual sense takes place in about grades four and five. Although the sensory systems do not function singularly (but are integrated in the total action…

The validity of the Kinesthetic Aftereffect (KAE) as a measure of personality has been criticized because of KAE's poor test-retest reliability. However, systematic bias effects render KA E retest sessions invalid and make test-retest reliability an inappropriate measure of KAE's true reliability. (Author/CTM)

Purpose of this investigation is to develop a method of measuring tactile sensation regarding the texture, size, and shape of objects (stereognosis) in the hand of normal two- to four-year-old children. (Author)

Yunger children, like adults, are found to demonstrate active tactual horizontal-vertical illusions that are like those obtained in vision. (Authors)