Accuracy Feedback and Delay Adaptation Effects in Visual and Tactile Duration Reproduction

Abstract

Brief actions involve multiple temporal cues that may not always synchronize, and in basic action-effect relationships, the effect is often delayed. How the brain incorporates delays across modalities in a sensorimotor duration reproduction remains unclear. To investigate this, we conducted two experiments on duration reproduction with delayed sensory feedback. Participants reproduced durations in either visual (Experiment 1) or tactile (Experiment 2) modalities. In the adaptation phase, a contingent sensory feedback, either visual or tactile, was delayed by 150 ms in one session and synchronized in the control session, with accuracy feedback provided after each trial. In the testing phase, random action-effect delays (0-150 ms) were introduced and accuracy feedback was removed. The findings revealed that accuracy feedback effectively recalibrated motor time but did not eliminate the delay. Without accuracy feedback, tactile reproduction relied more on the tactile feedback than on motor time, resulting in greater lengthening of motor reproduction compared to the visual feedback. These findings suggest that temporal delay adaptation is influenced by accuracy feedback and sensorimotor integration, with sensorimotor reliability assigning a higher weight to the tactile than the visual modality.