Abstract
Sustained exposure to an asynchronous multisensory signal causes perceived simultaneity to shift in the direction of the leading component of the adapting stimulus. This is known as temporal recalibration, and recent evidence suggests that it can occur very rapidly, even after a single asynchronous audiovisual (AV) stimulus. However, this form of rapid recalibration appears to be unique to AV stimuli, in contrast to recalibration following sustained asynchronies which occurs with audiotactile (AT) and visuotactile (VT) stimuli. This study examines temporal recalibration to AV, VT and AT asynchrony with spatially collocated stimuli using a design that produces both sustained and inter-trial recalibration by combining the traditional sustained adaptation approach with an inter-trial analysis of sequential dependencies in an extended test period. Thus, we compare temporal recalibration to both sustained and transient asynchrony in three crossmodal combinations using the same design, stimuli and observers. The results reveal that prolonged exposure to asynchrony produced equivalent temporal recalibration for all combinations: AV, AT and VT. The pattern for rapid, inter-trial recalibration was very different. Rapid recalibration occurred strongly for AV stimuli, weakly for AT and did not occur at all for VT. For all sensory pairings, recalibration from sustained asynchrony decayed to baseline during the test phase while inter-trial recalibration was present and stable throughout testing, suggesting different mechanisms may underlie adaptation at long and short timescales.
Highlights
Living in a constantly changing environment requires sensory mechanisms capable of adapting flexibly to novel situations
This shift can be termed a recalibration in that it involves a lateral shift to realign subjective timing. It may play a functional role by compensating for changes in physical timing to maintain component signals in a narrow range where integration is more likely, or it may arise as a consequence of typical repulsion recalibration effects that are widely observed in sensory systems following sustained exposure to a stimulus (Linares, Cos, & Roseboom, 2016; Roseboom, Linares, & Nishida, 2015)
Overall mean detection accuracy exceeded 80%, validating that participants were attending to the stimuli during the adaptation phase
Summary
Living in a constantly changing environment requires sensory mechanisms capable of adapting flexibly to novel situations. The perceptual system appears able to deal with misaligned multisensory inputs through an adaptation process known as temporal recalibration which effectively realigns multisensory signals, as demonstrated by a number of psychophysical studies (Fujisaki, Shimojo, Kashino, & Nishida, 2004; Navarra et al, 2005; Roseboom & Arnold, 2011; Vatakis, Navarra, Soto-Faraco, & Spence, 2007; Vroomen, Keetels, De Gelder, & Bertelson, 2004; Yarrow, Roseboom, & Arnold, 2011) These studies showed that several minutes of repeated exposure to an audiovisual (AV) stimulus with a fixed asynchrony (adaptation phase) causes a shift in perceived timing in a subsequent test phase such that the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) shifts towards the leading sensory modality in the adaptation phase. It may play a functional role by compensating for changes in physical timing to maintain component signals in a narrow range where integration is more likely, or it may arise as a consequence of typical repulsion recalibration effects that are widely observed in sensory systems following sustained exposure to a stimulus (Linares, Cos, & Roseboom, 2016; Roseboom, Linares, & Nishida, 2015)
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