Table 1.
Descriptive statistics of the study groups.
Fig 1.
Electrode configuration of the textile cuff of size S.
Top: External view with numbered electrode pairs, Bottom: Internal view of the electrode pairs consisting of silver-coated knitted fabric with carbon black filled silicon coating.
Table 2.
Size chart of the textile electrode cuffs.
Fig 2.
Hand position on the Vibroshaper during electrocutaneous stimulation at the upper right arm.
A vibration amplitude of 8 mm and a frequency of 9.5 Hz were used.
Fig 3.
Boxplots of perception (a), attention (b), muscle twitch (c), and intolerance thresholds (d) in dependence of electrode pair and type (TENS vs. textile).
Number of participants (n) out of 30 is given above each threshold. Each box plot shows summary statistics of threshold values for the study group. The solid horizontal line in each box represents the median, which, if off-center, indicates a skewed distribution. The box’s bottom and top mark the 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively, with their distance defining the interquartile range. Dashed-line whiskers extend from the box to the furthest non-outlier value. Outliers are data points more than 1.5 times the interquartile range from the box’s edges [33–35].
Fig 4.
Qualitative perceptions at perception (a), attention (b), and intolerance thresholds (c) in dependence of electrode pairs and type: TENS (left column) and textile (right column).
Fig 5.
Spatial perceptions at perception (a), attention (b), and intolerance thresholds (c) in dependence of electrode pairs and type: TENS (left column) and textile (right column).
Fig 6.
Boxplots of perception, attention, muscle twitch, and intolerance thresholds at electrode pair 3 of the textile electrodes: without (left box plots & dark colors) and during vibration (right boxplots & bright colors).
The number of participants (n) out of 36 is given above each threshold. Note that for the muscle twitch thresholds at the textile cuff the upper and the lower whiskers are equal to the 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively, hence, they are not visible.