Comparative Analysis of Tactile Sensitivity between Blind, Deaf and Unimpaired People

- This paper presents the methodological procedures and the results of a tactile sensitivity analysis to vibrotactile stimuli. The procedure consists in the attempt of a visual, hearing impaired person as well as an unimpaired one, initially trained, to identify three vibrotactile standard stimuli ( target frequency from 17.8, 31.6 and 56.2 Hz) having as starting point the sending of an initial stimulus (initial frequency ). The results were obtained through the analyses between the rightness mean while identifying the target frequency, among 1) visually and hearing impaired people as well as unimpaired ones: 2) visually and hearing impaired men and women and unimpaired ones: 3) visually and hearing impaired children, teenagers and adults as well as unimpaired ones; and 4) people with congenital and acquired blindness or deafness. A comparative analysis was done between the tactile sensitivity of the forefinger and the thumb, middle, ring and little fingers, as well as a comparison between the sensitivities in the target frequencies in the three groups (blind, deaf and unimpaired people). The results assessment obtained in the experiment was based on the t-student statistical method for paired and independent samples and ANOVA with a classification criterion.