Table 2.
The summary of findings regarding cross-modal associations between auditory and hand-feel touch cues.
| Types of Auditory Cues | Presentation Types of Auditory Cues | Types of Touch Cues | Presentation Types of Touch Cues | Key Findings | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loudness, pitch | (Modified) sounds of participants rubbing their own palms together played back to the participants | Roughness/moistness, dryness/smoothness | Participants’ own skin (participants rubbing their palms together) | Increased sound intensity and high pitch were more associated with higher smoothness/dryness of human palmar skin | Jousmäki & Hari [174] |
| Loudness, pitch | (Modified) sounds of participants touching the touch stimuli played back to the participants | Roughness | Abrasive closed-coat silicon carbide papers attached on plastic discs | Decreased sound intensity and lower pitch increased the perception of tactile smoothness | Guest et al. [170] |
| Loudness, auditory associations | Recorded sounds | Roughness | Programmed haptic device (SensAble PHANTOM) | Rougher textures were correlated with increased sound intensity; smoother textures were more associated with decreased sound intensity | Peeva et al. [171] |
| Loudness, pitch, sound type (violin vs. flute), auditory associations | Recorded sounds | Sharpness/bluntness, roughness/smoothness, hardness/softness, weight, temperature | Touch-related terms (i.e., no physical touch stimuli) | High smoothness and softness can be associated with low sound intensity, low pitch, and flute sound (compared to violin), while high sharpness can be associated with high sound intensity and flute sound (compared to violin) | Eitan & Rothschild [172] |
| Pitch, auditory associations | Daniel Barenhoim’s recording of Beethoven’s piano sonata (2nd movement, opus 111) | Temperature, hardness/softness, weight, roughness/softness, sharpness/bluntness, size (small/large), thinness/thickness | Touch-related terms (i.e., no physical touch stimuli) | High pitch was more associated with “small”, “thin”, “sharp”, “smooth”; low pitch was more associated with “large”, “thick”, “heavy”, “blunt”, “rough” | Eitan & Timmers (Experiment 2) [173] |