«Tactile Pictogram» Method: Differences in Tactile Perception Strategies in Schizophrenia and Healthy Control

The article presents the results of a study of tactile perception. The phenomena of hypersensitivity and hypensensitivity in mental pathology are associated with chenges of reaction rate, thresholds of perception of tactile stimuli, or with physiological characteristics — a change in the tactile receptor system (McGlone F., 2014). This study was performed as an attempt to identify cognitive perception strategies (styles) for the tactile system, as well as their changes in patients with a hallucinatory-paranoid form of schizophrenia. The method, which we called the “tactile pictogram”, was developed to identify tactile perception features. Stimuli: eight textile samples (different fabrics), the same size and shape (A5), but different in structure, density, color and texture. Instruction: We allow the patient to touch the fabtic with closed eyes to feel it (fabrics presented one by one) and tell any words to memorize this fabric. After that, as a test it was necessary to find out the fabric according to your description. Subjects was 45 students (department of psychology), age 20 to 50 years. 24 patients with a hallucinatory-paranoid form of schizophrenia and schizotypic disorder (F20.0, F21.0 in ICD-10) aged 14 to 40 years. Patients at the time of the study were medicated, pathological symptoms persisted. All the received characteristics were combined into categories: “image”, “symbol”, “color and pattern”, “function”, “subjective evaluation”, “affiliation”, “objective evaluation”, “associations by place”, “character”. The answers of the subjects were coded according to the categories, expert assessments were used. The values of the U-test for the intergroup differences p = 0.05 for the categories “image”, “symbol”, “color and pattern”. In general, both healthy and schizophrenics used no more than three perception strategies. Some samples have recognizable features (cotton) and do not differ in characteristics in patients and healthy. Conclusions: 1. For tissue samples: cotton, fine viscose and thin felt for both groups, no differences between groups are revealed; 2. Intergroup differences in other samples showed a predominance of associative strategies in patients with schizophrenia (compared to healthy ones).

MEMS-CMOS Integrated Tactile Sensor with Digital Signal Processing for Robot Application

ABSTRACTAn ultra-small tactile sensor with functions of signal processing and digital communication has been prototyped based on MEMS-CMOS integration technology. The designed analog-digital mixed signal ASIC allows many tactile sensors to connect each other on a common bus line, which drastically reduces the number of wire. The ASIC capacitively detects the deformation of a force sensor and sends digital data to the common bus line when the force exceeds a threshold. The digital data contain a physical ID of each sensor, 32-bit sensing data and 16-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code. In this study, a novel wafer-level integration and packaging technology were developed, and a chip-size-packaged tactile sensor with a small footprint (2.5mm×2.5mm) and a low profile (0.27mm) was prototyped and tested. The sensor autonomously sends digital data like a tactile receptor of human.

Hearing in insects: The nature of the response of certain receptors to auditory stimuli

The auditory receptors of the Orthoptera include tympanal organs and hair sensilla. The former have long been recognized as subserving an aural function, but the latter have, in this group, only recently been shown to respond to auditory stimuli (Pumphrey and Rawdon-Smith, 1936). Wever and Bray (1933), using an amplifier and telephones, have attempted to analyse the nervous response from the tympanal organs of the foreleg of crickets ( Lyogryllus campestris ). Their operational technique may be shortly described. Without previous dissection, a fine wire electrode was introduced into the leg of the experimental animal, the return lead consisting of a pad applied to the animal’s body. Owing to the fact that no direct contact was certainly made with the tympanal nerve and that the central ends of the leg nerves were not severed, responses of several kinds were obtained. Of these, an asynchronous response, described as producing a shushing noise in the telephones, was thought to arise from the tympanal organ; but no certain indication was given that this response was not partly or wholly of tactile origin. This point is of importance since, as we shall show in this paper, a response from certain types of tactile receptor may be readily elicited by an auditory stimulus. Similar criticisms apply to the recent results of Wever (1935) on the tympanic organ of the grasshopper (Arphea sulphurea).