Yes, sure, what are you looking for?

We are using piezoelectric elements originally based on braille elements for type writing / reading machines for the blind. They consist of 2 rows of 4 pins (other layouts exist as well) which can be individually controlled to move in/out with frequencies between single pulses and up to 200 Hz. We use them to apply simple detection or discrimination (orientation, location) tasks as well as pattern discrimination tasks Please have a look at our publication or drop me a note for further details. Other people (and also we some years ago) use air puffs or air driven membranes for stimulation.

We recently used MR compatible vibrators (Quaerosys, Schotten, Germany), programmed in ASF (http://code.google.com/p/asf/), to deliver tactile stimuli to sighted participants:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22849401

You may also find this paradigm, using kinesthetically guided arm reaching in congenitally blind and sighted participants, interesting:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23118194

In our lab we use piezoelectric 4x5 pin elements as well, but mostly I found these to be over-kill. Depending on what you want to do, the much cheaper vibro-tactile stimulators might be adequate. Also, the piezoelectic stimulators we use show a non-linear response function, but the manufacturer could not tell us what this function was. Finally, the entire stimulation sequence has to be sent to the controler prior to starting the experiment (the pins drop and rise every time a new stimulus is loaded, so there isn't a way around this). So, proper physchophysics are tricky at best.

A completely different method is handing the participants objects to explore or attaching objects to a 'haptic exploration board', e.g. with velcro.

Being better versed in visual research, I found the most important issue to consider was what haptic perception is usually used for and designing experiments acordingly, rather than trying to think of a haptic equivalent of a visual task. So, taking inspiration from previous work is an excellent way forward.

This may also give you some ideas: their setup is pretty inventive!

Active and passive touch differentially activate somatosensory cortex in texture perception

Cristina Simões-Franklin, Teresa Aisling Whitaker, Fiona N. Newell*Human Brain Mapping

Volume 32, Issue 7, pages 1067–1080, July 2011

DOI: 10.1002/hbm.21091

"Haptic" is about touch and social interaction, so have a look at this paper on social touch, where they found that the *primary* somatosensory cortex responds differently when an heterosexual male believes to be caressed by a man rather than from a female.

The paper's title is: "Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch", Gazzola et al, PNAS, 2012.

We use an MR vibrator made via an Arduino that controls an air-compressor attached to an assymetric turbine as in:

Prause, N., Roberts, V., Legarretta, M., & Cox, L. M. R. (2012). Clinical and research concerns with vibratory stimulation: A review and pilot study of common stimulation devices. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, .27(1).

@Angelika Lingnau: Does ASF run on a standalone PC without network access? I assume matlab must be running but often uses network licenses ...?

@Ben Godde: ASF does not require network access. At the moment it is optimized to run with Matlab. If that is a problem, you may want to try out Octave instead.

Certainly there are. It depends on which question you want to explore. In our lab we did fMRI study for tactile object recognition, spatial discrimination, movement discrimination. You may find a description of the methodology and the tactile paradigms used in those studies in the published papers indicated below:

The neural mechanisms of reliability weighted integration of shape information from vision and touch.

Helbig HB, Ernst MO, Ricciardi E, Pietrini P, Thielscher A, Mayer KM, Schultz J, Noppeney U.

Neuroimage. 2012 Apr 2;60(2):1063-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.09.072. Epub 2011 Oct 6.

PMID: 22001262 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Related citations

Select item 21321310

4.

Functional inhibition of the human middle temporal cortex affects non-visual motion perception: a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation study during tactile speed discrimination.

Ricciardi E, Basso D, Sani L, Bonino D, Vecchi T, Pietrini P, Miniussi C.

Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2011 Feb;236(2):138-44. doi: 10.1258/ebm.2010.010230.

PMID: 21321310 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Free Article

Related citations

Select item 21191477

5.

Effects of Visual Experience on the Human MT+ Functional Connectivity Networks: An fMRI Study of Motion Perception in Sighted and Congenitally Blind Individuals.

Sani L, Ricciardi E, Gentili C, Vanello N, Haxby JV, Pietrini P.

Front Syst Neurosci. 2010 Dec 20;4:159. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2010.00159.

PMID: 21191477 [PubMed] Free PMC Article

Related citations

Select item 20466041

6.

Beyond visual, aural and haptic movement perception: hMT+ is activated by electrotactile motion stimulation of the tongue in sighted and in congenitally blind individuals.

Matteau I, Kupers R, Ricciardi E, Pietrini P, Ptito M.

Brain Res Bull. 2010 Jul 30;82(5-6):264-70. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2010.05.001. Epub 2010 May 11.

PMID: 20466041 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Related citations

Select item 19378878

7.

Tactile spatial working memory activates the dorsal extrastriate cortical pathway in congenitally blind individuals.

Bonino D, Ricciardi E, Sani L, Gentili C, Vanello N, Guazzelli M, Vecchi T, Pietrini P.

Arch Ital Biol. 2008 Sep;146(3-4):133-46.

PMID: 19378878 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Free Article

Related citations

Select item 18394519

8.

Tactile flow explains haptic counterparts of common visual illusions.

Bicchi A, Scilingo EP, Ricciardi E, Pietrini P.

Brain Res Bull. 2008 Apr 15;75(6):737-41. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2008.01.011. Epub 2008 Feb 11.

PMID: 18394519 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Related citations

As Angelika said we used MR compatible vibrators (Quaerosys, Schotten, Germany). You can find the paradigm we used in the following paper.

The Contribution of Primary and Secondary Somatosensory Cortices to the Representation of Body Parts and Body Sides: An fMRI Adaptation Study.

Luigi Tamè, Christoph Braun, Angelika Lingnau, Jens Schwarzbach, Gianpaolo Demarchi, Yiwen Li Hegner, Alessandro Farnè, Francesco Pavani

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 07/2012