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Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch

To respond to a touch, it is often necessary to localize it in space, and not just on the skin. The computation of this external spatial location involves the integration of somatosensation with visual and proprioceptive information about current body posture. In the past years, the study of touch l...

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Autores principales: Heed, Tobias, Azañón, Elena
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3925972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24596561
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00076
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author Heed, Tobias
Azañón, Elena
author_facet Heed, Tobias
Azañón, Elena
author_sort Heed, Tobias
collection PubMed
description To respond to a touch, it is often necessary to localize it in space, and not just on the skin. The computation of this external spatial location involves the integration of somatosensation with visual and proprioceptive information about current body posture. In the past years, the study of touch localization has received substantial attention and has become a central topic in the research field of multisensory integration. In this review, we will explore important findings from this research, zooming in on one specific experimental paradigm, the temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, which has proven particularly fruitful for the investigation of tactile spatial processing. In a typical TOJ task participants perform non-speeded judgments about the order of two tactile stimuli presented in rapid succession to different skin sites. This task could be solved without relying on external spatial coordinates. However, postural manipulations affect TOJ performance, indicating that external coordinates are in fact computed automatically. We show that this makes the TOJ task a reliable indicator of spatial remapping, and provide an overview over the versatile analysis options for TOJ. We introduce current theories of TOJ and touch localization, and then relate TOJ to behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from other paradigms, probing the benefit of TOJ for the study of spatial processing as well as related topics such as multisensory plasticity, body processing, and pain.
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spelling pubmed-39259722014-03-04 Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch Heed, Tobias Azañón, Elena Front Psychol Psychology To respond to a touch, it is often necessary to localize it in space, and not just on the skin. The computation of this external spatial location involves the integration of somatosensation with visual and proprioceptive information about current body posture. In the past years, the study of touch localization has received substantial attention and has become a central topic in the research field of multisensory integration. In this review, we will explore important findings from this research, zooming in on one specific experimental paradigm, the temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, which has proven particularly fruitful for the investigation of tactile spatial processing. In a typical TOJ task participants perform non-speeded judgments about the order of two tactile stimuli presented in rapid succession to different skin sites. This task could be solved without relying on external spatial coordinates. However, postural manipulations affect TOJ performance, indicating that external coordinates are in fact computed automatically. We show that this makes the TOJ task a reliable indicator of spatial remapping, and provide an overview over the versatile analysis options for TOJ. We introduce current theories of TOJ and touch localization, and then relate TOJ to behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from other paradigms, probing the benefit of TOJ for the study of spatial processing as well as related topics such as multisensory plasticity, body processing, and pain. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-02-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3925972/ /pubmed/24596561 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00076 Text en Copyright © 2014 Heed and Azañón. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Heed, Tobias
Azañón, Elena
Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title_full Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title_fullStr Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title_full_unstemmed Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title_short Using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
title_sort using time to investigate space: a review of tactile temporal order judgments as a window onto spatial processing in touch
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3925972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24596561
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00076
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