Vibrotactile masking effects on airpuff-elicited sensations vary with skin region in the human hand.

Abstract

Inhibitory interactions between two tactile signals take place predominantly within mechanoreceptive submodality channels. This finding was utilized in the present study to determine the mechanoreceptive channels contributing to tactile sensations elicited by brief airpuff stimuli applied to the hairy and glabrous skin of the human hand. A reaction time paradigm was used to estimate the sensitivity of four subjects to airpuffs without and during continuous vibration (masker) of low (30 Hz) or high (240 Hz) frequency. The sensitivity to airpuffs (test stimuli) was decreased by a low-frequency masker in the hairy skin and by low- and especially by high-frequency maskers in the glabrous skin. The masking effect was enhanced in both skin areas by increasing the intensity of the masker and by decreasing the intensity of the test stimulus. The results suggest that the mechanisms underlying airpuff-elicited sensations consist of the low-frequency channel in the hairy skin, and of both the low- and high-frequency channels in the glabrous skin.