Abstract
Studies on human recalibration of perceived visuo-motor simultaneity so far have been limited to the study of recalibration to movement-lead temporal discrepancies (visual lags). We studied adaptation to both vision-lead and movement-lead discrepancies, to test for differences between these conditions, as a leading visual stimulus violates the underlying cause-effect structure. To this end, we manipulated the temporal relationship between a motor action (button press) and a visual event (flashed disk) in a training phase. Participants were tested in a temporal order judgment task and perceived simultaneity (PSS) was compared before and after recalibration. A PHANToM©force-feedback device that tracks the finger position in real time was used to display a virtual button. We predicted the timing of full compression of the button from early movement onset in order to time visual stimuli even before the movement event of the full button press. The results show that recalibration of perceived visuo-motor simultaneity is evident in both directions and does not differ in magnitude between the conditions. The strength of recalibration decreases with perceptual accuracy, suggesting the possibility that some participants recalibrate less because they detect the discrepancy. We conclude that the mechanisms of temporal recalibration work in both directions and that there is no evidence that they are asymmetrical around the point of actual simultaneity, despite the underlying asymmetry in the cause-effect relation.
Highlights
IntroductionWhen determining the timing of multisensory events, our brains have to compensate for cross-sensory latencies that stem from physical sources (e.g., light travels faster than sound) as well as physiological sources (e.g., differences in sensory transduction or neural transmission times)
When determining the timing of multisensory events, our brains have to compensate for cross-sensory latencies that stem from physical sources as well as physiological sources
We predicted the timing of full compression of the button from early movement onset in order to time visual stimuli even before the movement event of the full button press.The results show that recalibration of perceived visuo-motor simultaneity is evident in both directions and does not differ in magnitude between the conditions
Summary
When determining the timing of multisensory events, our brains have to compensate for cross-sensory latencies that stem from physical sources (e.g., light travels faster than sound) as well as physiological sources (e.g., differences in sensory transduction or neural transmission times). Arnold et al (2012) have shown that this constraint of temporal proximity is relative to the time of button press, not to the time of movement planning or movement onset These kinds of studies have so far been limited to scenarios where the movement event leads the temporal order. Whether adaptation where an external sensory event precedes a voluntary movement is possible and, if it is, whether it follows the same rules as adaptation to movement-lead discrepancies This is an interesting question because of the causal relationship that usually is accompanied with such sensory-motor events, i.e., a voluntary button press may trigger a flash but not vice versa. We designed an experiment to empirically test these two alternative hypotheses
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