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Reversal of subjective temporal order due to arm crossing

Nature Neuroscience volume 4, pages 759–765 (2001)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 December 2001

Abstract

How does the brain order successive events? Here we studied whether temporal order of two stimuli delivered in rapid succession, one to each hand, is determined before or after the stimuli are localized in space. When their arms were crossed, subjects could accurately report the temporal order, even when the interval between stimuli was as short as 70 ms. In most trials, subjects could also judge temporal order when their arms were crossed, but only if given adequate time (>1 s). At moderately short intervals (<300 ms), crossing the arms caused misreporting (that is, inverting) of the temporal order. Thus, at these intervals, the determining factor of temporal order was the spatial location of the hands. We suggest that it is not until the spatial locations of the hands are taken into account that the cutaneous signals from the respective hands are ordered in time.

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Figure 1: Temporal order judgment in the crossed (filled red circles) and the uncrossed (open black circles) conditions.
Figure 2: The Gaussian flip model.
Figure 3: Reaction time in the temporal order judgment.
Figure 4: Temporal order judgment in eye-movement response tasks.
Figure 5: Temporal order judgment in six arm arrangements.
Figure 6: Temporal order judgment in the crossed conditions with (filled red circles) and without (open black circles) mutual contact of the arms.
Figure 7: Temporal order judgment of successive visual stimuli from hands.

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Acknowledgements

We thank F.A. Miles, K. Kawano, S. Phillips and K. Yamamoto for comments while preparing the manuscript, and K. Matsuda for technical assistance in measuring eye movements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neuroscience Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Umezono, 305-8568, Tsukuba, Japan

    Shinya Yamamoto & Shigeru Kitazawa

  2. TOREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, 332-0012, Japan

    Shinya Yamamoto & Shigeru Kitazawa

  3. Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, 305-8575, Japan

    Shinya Yamamoto

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Correspondence to Shigeru Kitazawa.

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Yamamoto, S., Kitazawa, S. Reversal of subjective temporal order due to arm crossing. Nat Neurosci 4, 759–765 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/89559

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