Active movement restores veridical event-timing after tactile adaptation

Tomassini A, Gori M, Burr D, Sandini G, Morrone MC. Active movement restores veridical event-timing after tactile adaptation. J Neurophysiol 108: 2092-2100, 2012. First published July 25, 2012; doi: 10.1152/jn.00238.2012.-Growing evidence suggests that time in the subsecond range is tightly linked to sensory processing. Event-time can be distorted by sensory adaptation, and many temporal illusions can accompany action execution. In this study, we show that adaptation to tactile motion causes a strong contraction of the apparent duration of tactile stimuli. However, when subjects make a voluntary motor act before judging the duration, it annuls the adaptation-induced temporal distortion, reestablishing veridical event-time. The movement needs to be performed actively by the subject: passive movement of similar magnitude and dynamics has no effect on adaptation, showing that it is the motor commands themselves, rather than reafferent signals from body movement, which reset the adaptation...