Atypical Effects of Visual Interference on Tactile Temporal Order Judgment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Makoto Wada ◽  
Hanako Ikeda ◽  
Shinichiro Kumagaya

Abstract Visual distractors interfere with tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) at moderately short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in typically developing participants. Presentation of a rubber hand in a forward direction to the participant’s hand enhances this effect, while that in an inverted direction weakens the effect. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have atypical multisensory processing; however, effects of interferences on atypical multisensory processing in ASD remain unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of visual interference on tactile TOJ in individuals with ASD. Two successive tactile stimuli were delivered to the index and ring fingers of a participant’s right hand in an opaque box. A rubber hand was placed on the box in a forward or inverted direction. Concurrently, visual stimuli provided by light-emitting diodes on the fingers of the rubber hand were delivered in a congruent or incongruent order. Participants were required to judge the temporal order of the tactile stimuli regardless of visual distractors. In the absence of a visual stimulus, participants with ASD tended to judge the simultaneous stimuli as the ring finger being stimulated first during tactile TOJ compared with typically developing (TD) controls, and congruent visual stimuli eliminated the bias. When incongruent visual stimuli were delivered, judgment was notably reversed in participants with ASD, regardless of the direction of the rubber hand. The findings demonstrate that there are considerable effects of visual interferences on tactile TOJ in individuals with ASD.

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Makoto Wada ◽  
Kenji Kansaku

When people cross their arms, subjective rank ordering of successive unseen tactile stimuli delivered to both arms is affected (often being reversed) (Shore et al., 2002; Yamamoto and Kitazawa, 2001). It is also known that vision plays a significant role in modulating perceived limb position (Graziano et al., 2000). In this study, we examined the effect of vision; i.e., eyes opening and closing on tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) with their arms crossed or uncrossed. In a psychophysical experiment, participants (, 13 males, 27.3 ± 1.8 y.o.) were required to judge temporal order of two tactile stimuli that were delivered to their both ring fingers with four conditions: uncrossed arms with eyes closed, crossed arms with eyes closed, uncrossed arms with eyes open and crossed arms with eyes open. To evaluate judgment probabilities of the participants, degree of reversals of their judgment was calculated as the sum of differences between correct response rates of the arms crossed condition and those of the arms uncrossed condition. In arms uncrossed conditions, judgment probabilities of the participants were not significantly different between eyes closed and open conditions. In contrast, reversal of the judgment with eyes closed was significantly larger than that with eyes open in arms crossed conditions (). The results suggest that vision play a significant role in tactile order judgment when the subject arms crossed.


Author(s):  
Ali Moharramipour ◽  
Shigeru Kitazawa

Abstract Our subjective temporal order of two successive tactile stimuli delivered one to each hand is often inverted when our hands are crossed. However, there is great variability among different individuals. We addressed the question of why some show almost complete reversal, but others show little reversal. To this end, we obtained structural MRI data from 42 participants who also participated in the tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) task. We extracted the cortical thickness and the convoluted surface area as cortical characteristics in 68 regions. We found that the participants with a thinner, larger, and more convoluted cerebral cortex in ten regions, including the right pars-orbitalis, right and left postcentral gyri, left precuneus, left superior parietal lobule, right middle temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, right cuneus, left supramarginal gyrus, and right rostral middle frontal gyrus showed a smaller degree of judgment reversal. In light of major theoretical accounts, we suggest that cortical elaboration in the aforementioned regions improve the crossed-hand TOJ performance through better integration of the tactile stimuli with the correct spatial representations in the left parietal regions, better representation of spatial information in the postcentral gyrus, or improvement of top-down inhibitory control by the right pars-orbitalis.


Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 507-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valéry Legrain ◽  
Louise Manfron ◽  
Marynn Garcia ◽  
Lieve Filbrich

How we perceive our body is shaped by sensory experiences with our surrounding environment, as witnessed by poor performance in tasks during which participants judge with their hands crossed the temporal order between two somatosensory stimuli, one applied on each hand. This suggests that somatosensory stimuli are not only processed according to a somatotopic representation but also a spatiotopic representation of the body. We investigated whether the perception of stimuli occurring in external space, such as visual stimuli, can also be influenced by the body posture and somatosensory stimuli. Participants performed temporal order judgements on pairs of visual stimuli, one in each side of space, with their hands uncrossed or crossed. In Experiment 1, participants’ hands were placed either near or far from the visual stimuli. In Experiment 2, the visual stimuli were preceded, either by 60 ms or 360 ms, by tactile stimuli applied on the hands placed near the visual stimuli. Manipulating the time interval was intended to activate either a somatotopic or a spatiotopic representation of somatic inputs. We did not obtain any evidence for an influence of body posture on visual temporal order judgment, suggesting that body perception is less relevant for processing extrabody stimuli than the reverse.


2004 ◽  
Vol 42 (14) ◽  
pp. 1887-1895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Makoto Wada ◽  
Shinya Yamamoto ◽  
Shigeru Kitazawa

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 875-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Makoto Miyazaki ◽  
Shinya Yamamoto ◽  
Sunao Uchida ◽  
Shigeru Kitazawa

Author(s):  
Aimee J. Nelson ◽  
Azra Premji ◽  
Navjot Rai ◽  
Tasnuva Hoque ◽  
Mark Tommerdahl ◽  
...  

Background:Abnormal somatosensory processing may contribute to motor impairments observed in Parkinson's disease (PD). Dopaminergic medications have been shown to alter somatosensory processing such that tactile perception is improved. In PD, it remains unclear whether the temporal sequencing of tactile stimuli is altered and if dopaminergic medications alter this perception.Methods:Somatosensory tactile perception was investigated using temporal order judgment in patients with Parkinson's disease on and off dopaminergic medications and in aged-matched healthy controls. Measures of temporal order judgment were acquired using computer controlled stimulation to digits 2 and 3 on the right hand and subjects were required to determine which stimuli occurred first. Two experimental tasks were compared, temporal order judgment without and with synchronization whereby digits 2 and 3 were vibrated synchronously in advance of the temporal order judgment sequence of stimuli.Results:Temporal order judgment in PD patients off and on medications were similar to controls. Temporal order judgment preceded by synchronous vibration impaired tactile acuity in controls and in PD off medications to similar degrees, but this perceptual impairment by synchronous vibration was not present in PD patients on medications.Conclusions:These findings suggest that dopamine in PD reduces cortico-cortical connectivity within SI and this leads to changes in tactile sensitivity.


Perception ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 715-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Jaśkowski

Temporal-order judgment was investigated for a pair of visual stimuli with different durations in order to check whether offset asynchrony can disturb the perception of the order/simultaneity of onset. In experiment 1 the point of subjective simultaneity was estimated by the method of adjustment. The difference in duration of the two stimuli in the pair was either 0 or 50 ms. It was found that the subject shifts the onset of the shorter stimulus towards the offset of the longer one to obtain a satisfying impression of simultaneity even though the subject was asked to ignore the events concerning the stimulus offset. In experiments 2 and 3 the method of constant stimulus was applied. Both experiments indicate that subjects, in spite of instruction, take into account the offset asynchrony in their judgment.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 120
Author(s):  
Abigail Novick ◽  
Nicola Fiddes ◽  
Eleanor Huber ◽  
Tucker Smith ◽  
Jared Medina

We presented participants with a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task with vibratory stimuli presented to the ends of held tools. We manipulated whether the hands and tools were uncrossed or crossed, predicting that participants would respond more accurately if the responding body part and tool tip were in the same hemispace (see Yamamoto and Kitazawa, 2001). Participants were split into two groups (24 subjects in each group). One group responded manually with the stimulated tools, the other group responded with foot pedals. Contrasting previous findings, we found no significant effect of manipulating tool position when the hands were uncrossed, regardless of response type. Effects of response type were also observed, as participants were significantly more accurate when responding with the stimulated tools compared to responding with foot pedals. Interactions were also found between response type and sex. Compared to males, females made a substantially greater number of confusion errors when responding with feet, but not when responding with tools. Additionally, compared to males, females made substantially more confusion errors with the arms crossed, reflecting previously reported results in tactile TOJ on the hands (Cadieux et al., 2010). These results suggest potential differences in spatial mapping and tactile processing in males and females.


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