Temporal recalibration to tactile-visual asynchronous stimuli

Abstract

Here we demonstrate that the perceptual system adapts to tactile-visual temporal asynchronies (i.e., temporal recalibration). Participants were exposed to a train of tactile and visual stimuli with a constant time lag (either -100ms, 0ms, or 100ms; with negative values indicating that the tactile stimulus came first). Following exposure, they were presented tactile-visual test stimulus pairs and judged whether the tactile or the visual stimulus was presented first (Temporal Order Judgement). Results show that subjective simultaneity (the PSS) was shifted in the direction of the exposure lag. The results fit reports on auditory-visual temporal recalibration and indicate that the brain adapts to temporal incongruencies between modalities in general.