Voluntary action improves auditory-somatosensory crossmodal temporal resolution.

Norimichi Kitagawa, Masaharu Kato, Makio Kashino
Poster
Last modified: 2008-05-13

Abstract


It has been reported that voluntary action captures a subsequent sensory event, causing perceptual shift of the event towards slightly earlier in time. This effect of sensorimotor binding could predict a larger temporal window of synchrony between voluntary action and a subsequent sensory event, and worse temporal resolution between them, compared with those observed without voluntary action. In the present study, we assessed this prediction by examining whether voluntary action affects performance of temporal order judgment (TOJ) to pairs of auditory and somatosensory events. Participants actively pressed a key, or their finger pad was passively stimulated, while trying to keep both tactile stimulations similar as much as possible. A noise burst was presented at various onset asynchronies relative to the touch. The participants made either 'sound-first' or 'touch-first' response to each pair of auditory and somatosensory events. The observed TOJ performance as indexed by just noticeable difference (JND) was better (i.e., smaller JNDs) when the participants actively pressed the key than when their finger was passively stimulated. The active touch shifted the point of subjective simultaneity towards the auditory delay. The results suggest that voluntary action improve auditory-somatosensory crossmodal temporal resolution, as opposed to the prediction from the previous findings.

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