Visuotactile

Visuotactile refers to the integration of visual and tactile (somatosensory) information by the nervous system. It describes how sight and touch are combined to form coherent percepts of object properties, contact events, and spatial relationships. Visuotactile processing supports perceptual judgments and actions by providing concurrent cues about texture, shape, location, and force.

Neural and perceptual mechanisms of visuotactile integration rely on multisensory processing areas in the brain, including parts of the superior colliculus and posterior parietal cortex, as well as premotor regions. Integration is influenced by spatial and temporal congruence, gain modulation, and causal inferences about whether the signals originate from a common source. When visual and tactile cues are aligned, perception becomes more accurate and responses faster; when they are incongruent, integration can diminish or be weighted toward one modality.

A well-known demonstration of visuotactile integration is the rubber hand illusion, where synchronous visuotactile stimulation of a hidden real hand and a visible rubber hand can shift body ownership and perception of touch. This and related experiments illustrate how vision can modulate tactile perception and vice versa, with implications for body representation and sensory rehabilitation.

In robotics and human–machine interfaces, visuotactile sensing combines vision with tactile data to improve manipulation, texture recognition, and contact stability. Technologies include optical tactile sensors that generate tactile images, which are fused with camera data to estimate contact state, pose, and slip. Applications span prosthetics, surgical robotics, teleoperation, and immersive virtual reality.