A device to measure cutaneous temperature sensitivity in humans and subhuman species

1975 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1038-1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Kenshalo ◽  
D. C. Bergen
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Sensitivity ◽  
Current Control ◽  
Feedback Control System ◽  
Cutaneous Temperature ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Peltier Device ◽  
Temperature Sense ◽  
Safety Features ◽  
Psychophysical Studies ◽  
Control Apparatus

A device is described to maintain restricted areas of skin at any temperature between 5 and 45 degrees C. Changes in temperature of controlled intensity up to 10 degrees C at rates from 0.03 degrees C to 2 degrees C/s can be delivered in either the warm or cool directions. The stimulator, which is in contact with the skin, is sufficiently simple so that a number of them can be constructed, each with a different contact area up to 18.2 cm2. The current control apparatus that operates a Peltier device in the stimulator is a feedback control system that maintains a precisely controlled temperature at the stimulator-skin interface. Safety features make it suitable and safe for use in human psychophysical studies and subhuman behavioral measurements of temperature sensitivity. Electrostatic shielding makes it compatible with the electronic instruments used in electrophysiological studies of the temperature sense.

The Involuntary Capture of Attention by Sound

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice B. R. Parmentier ◽  
Pilar Andrés
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Visual Task ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Auditory Oddball ◽  
Current Trial ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Task Sets

The presentation of auditory oddball stimuli (novels) among otherwise repeated sounds (standards) triggers a well-identified chain of electrophysiological responses: The detection of acoustic change (mismatch negativity), the involuntary orientation of attention to (P3a) and its reorientation from the novel. Behaviorally, novels reduce performance in an unrelated visual task (novelty distraction). Past studies of the cross-modal capture of attention by acoustic novelty have typically discarded from their analysis the data from the standard trials immediately following a novel, despite some evidence in mono-modal oddball tasks of distraction extending beyond the presentation of deviants/novels (postnovelty distraction). The present study measured novelty and postnovelty distraction and examined the hypothesis that both types of distraction may be underpinned by common frontally-related processes by comparing young and older adults. Our data establish that novels delayed responses not only on the current trial and but also on the subsequent standard trial. Both of these effects increased with age. We argue that both types of distraction relate to the reconfiguration of task-sets and discuss this contention in relation to recent electrophysiological studies.

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