Encoding Spatial Information through Sensory Substitution
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2024-07-08
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en
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Abstract
Somatosensory feedback is critically absent from current consumer motor prostheses, leading to poor
dexterity of movements and an increased burden on other senses. While the restoration of tactile
feedback has seen satisfactory results, the restoration of proprioceptive feedback has lagged behind.
In this thesis, I aimed to investigate the applicability of non-invasive sensory substitution to encode
spatial variables that can guide movements, serving as a proof of principle for encoding proprioceptive
variables for prostheses. An auditory-spatial map was used to encode the one-dimensional position of a
computer cursor through the frequency of an audio tone. In the first experiment, the learnability of the
auditory-spatial map was tested using a visual target matching task, in which the cursor position was
communicated via auditory feedback. The results of the first experiment showed improved accuracy
and precision after training, suggesting that participants can learn the auditory-spatial map. In the
second experiment, the use of this novel auditory-spatial map was evaluated by testing for sensory
integration between auditory and visual cues. To this end, spatial conflicts between auditory and
visual information about the position of the cursor in a target matching task were introduced. The
visual cue was presented with varying offset and noise levels to derive the relative weighting of both
sources of information used by the participants. The data suggest that auditory and visual cues
were integrated, but that manipulation of visual cue noise did not affect behavior. Furthermore,
computational modeling also showed that models of multisensory integration with a single visual noise
level parameter explained the data better than unisensory models. Together, these results suggest the
learnability and multisensory integration of a novel auditory-spatial map, presenting a promising proof
of principle for using sensory substitution to encode proprioceptive variables in prostheses.
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen