Differential modulation of temporal precision and perceived timing by tactile spatial and temporal context

Perception of sensory events depends not only on the stimulus itself but also on the surrounding spatial and temporal context. While contextual interactions have been extensively studied in vision, less is known about how tactile spatial and temporal context shape temporal representation of tactile landmarks embedded within continuous tactile signals. we investigated how neighbouring tactile stimuli influence the temporal precision and perceived timing of a target tactile landmark using an auditory-referenced temporal order judgement task. The number, location, and relative timing of task-irrelevant vibrotactile flankers were manipulated independently. Increasing the number of flankers reduced temporal precision, with comparable effects for adjacent and contralateral stimulation, indicating that temporal precision is limited by contextual interactions beyond local spatial proximity. In contrast, the relative timing of the flankers did not alter temporal sensitivity but systematically shifted perceived target timing. Flankers preceding the target shifted the perceived timing of the target earlier, whereas lagging flankers shifted it to the opposite direction. When one flanker preceded and the other followed the target the direction of the resulting spatiotemporal sequence across the fingers determined the direction of the perceptual bias. These findings reveal two distinct forms of contextual modulation in tactile temporal perception. Spatial context degrades temporal precision, whereas temporal context shifts perceived event timing. These findings demonstrate that spatial and temporal context shape distinct temporal aspects of tactile representations, extending contextual interference from feature identity and localisation to temporal precision and perceived timing.