Beats are among the basic units of perceptual experience. Produced by regular, intermittent stimulation, beats are most commonly associated with audition, but the experience of a beat can result from stimulation in other modalities as well. We studied the robustness of visual, vibrotactile, and bimodal signals as sources of beat perception. Subjects attempted to discriminate between pulse trains delivered at 3 Hz or at 6 Hz. To investigate signal robustness, we intentionally degraded signals on two-thirds of the trials using temporal-domain noise. On these trials, inter-pulse intervals (IPIs) were stochastic, perturbed independently from the nominal IPI by random samples from zero-mean Gaussian distributions with different variances. These perturbations produced directional changes in the IPIs, which either increased or decreased the likelihood of confusing the two pulse rates. In addition to affording an assay of signal robustness, this paradigm made it possible to gauge how subjects' judgments were influenced by successive IPIs. Logistic regression revealed a strong primacy effect: subjects' decisions were disproportionately influenced by a trial's initial IPIs. Response times and parameter estimates from drift-diffusion modeling showed that information accumulates more rapidly with bimodal stimulation than with either unimodal stimulus alone. Analysis of error rates within each condition suggested consistently optimal decision making, even with increased IPI variability. Finally, beat information delivered by vibrotactile signals proved just as robust as information conveyed by visual signals, confirming vibrotactile stimulation's potential as a communication channel.

中文翻译：

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感受节拍（和看到它）：振动触觉、视觉和双峰速率辨别。

节拍是感知体验的基本单位之一。节拍由规律的、间歇性的刺激产生，最常与试听有关，但节拍的体验也可能来自其他方式的刺激。我们研究了视觉、振动触觉和双峰信号作为节拍感知来源的稳健性。受试者试图区分以 3 Hz 或 6 Hz 传输的脉冲序列。为了研究信号的稳健性，我们有意使用时域噪声降低了三分之二试验中的信号。在这些试验中，脉冲间间隔 (IPI) 是随机的，独立于标称 IPI 受到来自具有不同方差的零均值高斯分布的随机样本的干扰。这些扰动导致 IPI 的方向变化，这会增加或减少混淆两种脉搏率的可能性。除了提供信号稳健性分析之外，这种范式还可以衡量受试者的判断如何受到连续 IPI 的影响。Logistic 回归显示出很强的首要效应：受试者的决定受到试验初始 IPI 的影响不成比例。来自漂移扩散模型的响应时间和参数估计表明，双峰刺激比单独使用任一单峰刺激更快地积累信息。对每种条件下的错误率分析表明，即使 IPI 可变性增加，也能始终如一地做出最佳决策。最后，振动触觉信号传递的节拍信息被证明与视觉信号传递的信息一样强大，