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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1425398

Enhanced Neural Phase Locking Through Audio-Tactile Stimulation

Provisionally accepted
Mels Jagt Mels Jagt 1,2*Francesco Ganis Francesco Ganis 2Stefania Serafin Stefania Serafin 2
  • 1 School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
  • 2 Multisensory Experience Lab, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Numerous studies have underscored the close relationship between the auditory and vibrotactile modality. For instance, in the peripheral structures of both modalities, afferent nerve fibers synchronize their activity to the external sensory stimulus, thereby providing a temporal code linked to pitch processing. The Frequency Following Response is a neurological measure that captures this phase locking activity in response to auditory stimuli. In our study, we investigated whether this neural signal is influenced by the simultaneous presentation of a vibrotactile stimulus. Accordingly, our findings revealed a significant increase in phase locking to the fundamental frequency of a speech stimulus, while no such effects were observed at harmonic frequencies. Since phase locking to the fundamental frequency has been associated with pitch perceptual capabilities, our results suggests that audio-tactile stimulation might improve pitch perception in human subjects.

    Keywords: frequency following response, phase locking, fundamental frequency, pitch, Speech, Audio-tactile, multisensory, vibrotactile

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jagt, Ganis and Serafin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mels Jagt, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, CH-1015, Vaud, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.