DS8_mt_Cross-modal interactions and movement-related tactile gating: the role of vision_v1.0

In this study, we investigated the velocity discrimination threshold of both sighted and blind individuals using dynamic stimuli. Participants were tasked with discriminating the faster stimulus from a sequence of two stimuli that varied in speed. We provided audio-tactile stimulation through a physical rotating wheel (tactile) and an attached auditory device (audio). Two experimental conditions were employed: (1) audio-tactile passive touch, where participants kept their finger still, and (2) audio-tactile active touch, where participants moved their finger in the opposite direction of the wheel's movement.
We measured the just noticeable difference (JND) and the point of subjective equality (PSE) for each condition of every subject.
The term 'subject' refers to the code assigned to each participant, where the presence of 'B' at the end of a subject's code signifies a blind participant. 'Age' represents the age of each participant, 'condition' indicates whether the tactile input was passive or active, and 'sensory_stimulus' signifies the audio-tactile stimulus provided. 'Standard_cm_sec' denotes the standard velocity of the wheel (3 cm/sec in our case), 'pse_cm_sec' represents the value of the point of subjective equality (PSE) obtained by the participant, 'jnd_cm_sec' signifies the value of our dependent variable, the just noticeable difference (JND) of each participant. 'Vision' indicates whether the subject was blind (B) or sighted (S). 'Blind_duration' corresponds to the number of years of blindness in our blind sample, while 'type_blindness' specifies whether the participant is classified as late blind (LB), early blind (EB), or a sighted control (SC).