Can what we hear affect our sense of touch?

Our ability to process the number of events over time, so-called temporal frequency information, allows us to discriminate surface textures by touch or listen to a conversation in a noisy environment. Studies have actually shown that sounds can alter our detection of vibrations and even our subjective experience of textures. How does what we are hearing affect our brain's ability to understand what our hands are feeling? In this podcast, Editor-in-Chief Bill Yates (University of Pittsburgh), Associate Editor Christos Constantinidis (Wake Forest University), and content expert Carmel Levitan (Occidental College) talk with author Jeff Yau (Baylor College of Medicine) about his work investigating auditory adaptation and tactile frequency perception. Could it be that the neural circuits supporting tactile frequency perception also process auditory signals? Listen and find out.

Auditory adaptation improves tactile frequency perception
Lexi E. Crommett, Alexis Pérez-Bellido, Jeffrey M. Yau
Journal of Neurophysiology, published online January 11, 2017. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00783.2016 .