Tactome Project
How our sense of touch changes as we get older
Funded by Research Ireland
Aims
We know that vision, hearing and balance decline as we age. Less well known is that our sense of touch can also deteriorate. We measure touch in healthy younger and older adults, from basic sensitivity to recognising objects by hand, using validated psychophysical methods.
AIM 1
Map how touch changes with age
Characterise the variability in tactile sensitivity and haptic object perception associated with ageing.
AIM 2
Test how adaptable touch is
Assess whether haptic object perception in older age benefits from predictive knowledge or input from the other senses.
Current studies
Exploratory procedures and hand tracking
Kate Nevin
Kate uses hand tracking to map the hand movements people make when exploring and identifying objects by touch.Read more →
Time and exploration in 2D shape discrimination
Nina Zumbrunn
How do exploration time and exploration strategy affect how well we can tell 2D shapes apart by touch? Nina uses hand tracking to find out.Read more →
A self-report questionnaire of haptic function
Rebecca Hirst
Rebecca is developing a questionnaire that lets people report how well their sense of touch works in everyday life.Read more →
Cross-modal category learning and age-related changes in touch
Martina Seveso & Alan O’Dowd
How well does category knowledge learned by sight or by touch transfer between the senses, and does this change as we age?Read more →
Previous studies
The touch-induced flash illusion
Nina Zumbrunn & Rebecca Hirst
Comparing the sound- and touch-induced flash illusions in younger and older adults, and testing the touch illusion on smartphones for the first time.Read more →