Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Dental Research
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zampini, M.
Right arrow Articles by Spence, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zampini, M.
Right arrow Articles by Spence, C.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
Medline Plus Health Information
*Dental Health
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Clinical

The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perception of Electric Toothbrushes

M. Zampini1,*, S. Guest2 and C. Spence1,*

1 Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK; and
2 School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7450, USA;

Correspondence: * corresponding authors, massimiliano.zampini{at}psy.ox.ac.uk or charles.spence{at}psy.ox.ac.uk

Recent research shows that what people hear can influence what they feel. We investigated whether the perception of an electric toothbrush might also be affected by the sound that it makes. Participants were required to make stereotypical brushing movements with a standard electric toothbrush while they rated either the pleasantness or the roughness of the vibrotactile stimulation they felt on their teeth. The results demonstrate that the perception of the sensations experienced during toothbrush use were systematically altered by variations in the auditory feedback elicited by the brushing action. Participants reported that the toothbrush felt more pleasant and less rough when either the overall sound level was reduced, or when just the high-frequency sounds were attenuated. These results highlight the significant role that auditory cues can play in modulating the perception and evaluation of everyday products in use, and provide a paradigm for future study in this area.

Key Words: multisensory • vibration • touch • hearing • perception

Journal of Dental Research, Vol. 82, No. 11, 929-932 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/154405910308201116
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?