Influence of Back Length on Vibrotactile Acuity in Vertical Direction

In this study, we were interested in the question whether vibrotactile thresholds on the back, in terms of the Just Noticeable Difference (JND), scale with back length. Although there exists only indirect physiological evidence, it could be assumed that the density of mechanoreceptors is lower if back size is larger. As a consequence, the JND would increase with back length. We measured psychophysical curves for 40 male participants with back lengths in the range of 36 to 55 cm. Nine equally spaced vibration motors were placed in vertical direction on their back, 2 cm left of the spine. For each stimulus pair, participants had to decide whether the second vibration was above or below the first vibration. It was found that the slope of the fit of the JND as a function of back length was not significantly different from zero, so contrary to our expectation, we did not find an influence of back length on JND. This means that when customizing a wearable haptic device for the back, measuring back length is not the way to go.