This is the unspecified version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractDeciding precisely when we have acted is challenging, as actions involve a train of neural events spread across both space and time. Repeated delays between actions and consequent events can result in a shift, such that immediate feedback can seem to precede the causative act. Here we examined which neurocognitive representations are affected during such sensorimotor temporal recalibration, by testing if the effect generalises across limbs, and whether it might reflect altered decision criteria for temporal judgements. Hand or foot adaptation phases were interspersed with simultaneity judgements about actions involving the same or opposite limb. Shifts in the distribution of participants' simultaneity responses were quantified using a detection-theoretic model, where a shift of both boundaries together gives a stronger indication that the effect is not simply a result of decision bias. By demonstrating that temporal recalibration occurs in the foot as well as the hand, we confirmed that it is a robust motor phenomenon:Both low and high boundaries shifted reliably in the same-limb conditions. However, in cross-limb conditions only the high boundary shifted reliably. These two patterns are interpreted to reflect a genuine change in how the time of action is represented, and a timing criterion shift, respectively.Keywords: Temporal recalibration, temporal judgement, adaptation, synchrony, action 4 Consider a falling apple. Our subjective experience of this well-known prompt for scientific insight is seamless and unified; the apple appears to fall as a coherent composite of colour, form and motion, before striking the ground with a dull thud. However, from the perspective of a homunculus (or indeed a neuroscientist) looking down upon the brain's activity in response to this sequence of events, the view is of a time-smeared and spatially distributed cacophony of electro-chemical signalling. This viewpoint leaves us wondering how the observer is able to decide with confidence that this particular auditory thud occurred at the same time as that particular visual collision.Science has not yet provided a compelling answer to this question. There is, however, evidence to suggest that recent experience plays an important role, or, put another way, that the temporal relationships that constitute simultaneity can be learnt and relearnt. Several methods exist to try and establish the relative time at which two events appear maximally synchronous (known as the point of subjective simultaneity or PSS). The most common methods require that participants report either the order of two events (a temporal order judgement; TOJ) or whether two or more events occurred synchronously or asynchronously (a simultaneity judgement; SJ). Intriguingly, when brief auditory and visual stimuli are repeatedly presented slightly out of synch during a period of adaptation, participants subsequen...
Temporal coincidence provides a powerful cue that events originating from different sensory modalities, such as audition and vision, have a common cause. Multisensory integration is often found across a range of sub-second physical asynchronies, supporting the existence of a temporal binding window. In recent years, it has become de rigueur to measure temporal binding windows using the simultaneity judgement (SJ) task, and interpret differences between groups as indicative of differences in the temporal sensitivity of integration processes. Recently, it was reported that a multisensory deficit (indicated by a widened range of perceived simultaneity) can be observed for audiovisual (but not visuotactile) processing following early visual deprivation. This report is likely of considerable interest to the multisensory community. However, we believe that like similar work it does not include sufficiently explicit caveats about the processes that generate the window of simultaneity, potentially misrepresenting the underlying cause(s) of differences between groups. Here, we advocate more explicit recognition of the fundamentally subjective nature of the ‘window’ derived from SJs. We argue that it has poor face validity to measure the conceptually distinct temporal binding window, and demonstrate that its extent is dependent on how the observer decides to interpret the word “simultaneous.”
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