Determination of the Thermal-tactile Simultaneity Window for Multisensory Cutaneous Displays*

Multisensory cutaneous displays have been developed to enhance the realism of objects touched in virtual environments. However, when stimuli are presented concurrently, tactile stimuli can mask thermal perception and so both these modalities may not be available to convey information to the user. In this study, we aim to determine the simultaneity window using the Simultaneity Judgment Task. A device was created that could present both tactile and thermal stimuli to the thenar eminence of the participant ’s left hand with various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA). The experimental results indicated that the simultaneity window width was 639 ms ranging from −561 ms to 78 ms. The point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) was at −242 ms, indicating that participants perceived simultaneity best when the thermal stimulus preceded the tactile stimulus by 242 ms. These findings have implications for the design of stimulus presentation in multisensory cutaneous displays.