Abstract
For most multisensory events, observers perceive synchrony among the various senses (vision, audition, touch), despite the naturally occurring lags in arrival and processing times of the different information streams. A substantial amount of research has examined how the brain accomplishes this. In the present article, we review several key issues about intersensory timing, and we identify four mechanisms of how intersensory lags might be dealt with: by ignoring lags up to some point (a wide window of temporal integration), by compensating for predictable variability, by adjusting the point of perceived synchrony on the longer term, and by shifting one stream directly toward the other.
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M.K. is supported by NWO-VENI Grant 451-08-020. An extensive review of this literature will appear in Frontiers in the Neural Basis of Multisensory Processes (Micah M. Murray and Mark Thomas Wallace, Eds.).
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Vroomen, J., Keetels, M. Perception of intersensory synchrony: A tutorial review. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 72, 871–884 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/APP.72.4.871
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/APP.72.4.871