AUTHOR=Mueller Stefanie , Fiehler Katja 

TITLE=Gaze-dependent spatial updating of tactile targets in a localization task

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=5

YEAR=2014

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00066

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00066

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>There is concurrent evidence that visual reach targets are represented with respect to gaze. For tactile reach targets, we previously showed that an effector movement leads to a shift from a gaze-independent to a gaze-dependent reference frame. Here we aimed to unravel the influence of effector movement (gaze shift) on the reference frame of tactile stimuli using a spatial localization task (yes/no paradigm). We assessed how gaze direction (fixation <italic>left/right</italic>) alters the perceived spatial location (point of subjective equality) of sequentially presented tactile standard and visual comparison stimuli while effector movement (gaze <italic>fixed/shifted</italic>) and stimulus order (<italic>vis-tac/tac-vis</italic>) were varied. In the fixed-gaze condition, subjects maintained gaze at the fixation site throughout the trial. In the shifted-gaze condition, they foveated the first stimulus, then made a saccade toward the fixation site where they held gaze while the second stimulus appeared. Only when an effector movement occurred <italic>after</italic> the encoding of the tactile stimulus (shifted-gaze, <italic>tac-vis</italic>), gaze s<italic>imilarly</italic> influenced the perceived location of the tactile and the visual stimulus. In contrast, when gaze was fixed or a gaze shift occurred <italic>before</italic> encoding of the tactile stimulus, gaze <italic>differentially</italic> affected the perceived spatial relation of the tactile and the visual stimulus suggesting gaze-dependent coding of only one of the two stimuli. Consistent with previous findings this implies that visual stimuli vary with gaze irrespective of whether gaze is fixed or shifted. However, a gaze-dependent representation of tactile stimuli seems to critically depend on an effector movement (gaze shift) after tactile encoding triggering spatial updating of tactile targets in a gaze-dependent reference frame. Together with our recent findings on tactile reaching, the present results imply similar underlying reference frames for tactile spatial perception and action.</p>