Tactile perception plays an important role in activities of daily living, and it can be impaired in individuals with medical conditions. The most common tools used to assess tactile sensation, the Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments and the 128 Hz tuning fork, have poor repeatability and resolution. Long term, we aim to provide a repeatable, high-resolution testing platform that can be used to assess vibrotactile perception through smartphones without the need for an experimenter to be present to conduct the test. We present a smartphone-based vibration perception measurement platform and compare its performance to measurements from standard monofilament and tuning fork tests. We conducted a user study with 36 healthy adults in which we tested each tool on the hand, wrist, and foot, to assess how well our smartphone-based vibration perception thresholds (VPTs) detect known trends obtained from standard tests. The smartphone platform detected statistically significant changes in VPT between the index finger and the foot and also between the feet of younger adults and older adults. Our smartphone-based VPT had a moderate correlation to tuning fork-based VPT. A long-term objective of this work is to develop an accessible smartphone-based platform that can be used to measure disease progression and regression.

翻译：触觉感知在日常生活活动中起着重要作用，但可能因医学状况而受损。最常用的触觉评估工具——Semmes-Weinstein单丝和128 Hz音叉——重复性差且分辨率低。长期目标是提供一种可重复、高分辨率的测试平台，通过智能手机评估振动触觉感知，且无需实验者在场进行测试。我们提出了一种基于智能手机的振动感知测量平台，并将其性能与标准单丝和音叉测试的结果进行比较。我们开展了一项包含36名健康成年人的用户研究，对手部、腕部和足部进行每种工具的测试，以评估基于智能手机的振动感知阈值（VPTs）检测标准测试中已知趋势的能力。智能手机平台检测到了食指与足部之间以及年轻与老年成年人足部之间VPT的统计学显著变化。基于智能手机的VPT与基于音叉的VPT呈中等相关性。这项工作的长期目标是开发一种可访问的智能手机平台，用于测量疾病的进展与退行。