The effect of sensory modality and previous experience on perceived roughness

In the present study we investigated the influence of the sensory modality of information on the perceived roughness of unfamiliar textures. Subjects were instructed to judge the roughness of embossed dot patterns with varying inter-dot spacing in a visual, haptic or a visual-haptic combined information condition. Our results indicate that the relationship of inter-dot spacing and roughness perception is not only influenced by the sensory information that is available, but also by the modality in which the first sensory experience with those textures was obtained.