Presentation Information
[P2-08]Effects of simultaneity and arm posture on tactile time perception in young and older adults
*Chika Goto1, Naoya Tachibana1, Shogo Sugiyama, Yuko Yotsumoto1 (1. the University of Tokyo (Japan))
Keywords:
frequency discrimination,vibrotactile perception,arm-crossing,aging,simultaneity
While age-related decline in basic sensory processing is well documented, its effects on higher-order tactile functions remain unclear. In particular, how aging affects tactile frequency discrimination has received limited attention. Prior research reported that frequency discrimination becomes more difficult when tactile stimuli are presented simultaneously (Kuroki et al., 2017), but the role of stimulus simultaneity in age-related decline has not been systematically examined.To address this gap, we conducted a vibrotactile frequency discrimination task with ten young adults (age range = 19–22; Mean = 19.0; SD = 1.29) and 30 older individuals (age range = 65–83; Mean = 74.0; SD = 3.93). Stimuli were presented either simultaneously or sequentially (with a 200 ms interval). Given that arm crossing could modulate task difficulty, experiments were conducted under both crossed and uncrossed arm conditions.Results showed a significant age-related decline in frequency discrimination performance, particularly during simultaneous presentation (BFinclusion = 3.452; F(1, 28) = 27.25, p < .01), suggesting difficulty in suppressing competing tactile information presented in close temporal proximity. Additionally, older adults exhibited a stronger arm-crossing effect (BFinclusion = 2.854; F(1, 38) = 5.455, p < .02), indicating increased vulnerability to interference from task-irrelevant spatial information. These findings highlight the impact of aging on higher-order tactile and spatial processing, potentially linked to declining inhibitory function in the secondary somatosensory cortex.