The Role of Movement on the Development of the Audiotactile Temporal Binding Window

The perception of temporal correspondence between sensory signals from body movements and those arising through environmental interactions is crucial for multisensory integration and adaptive behavior. In adults, the perception of multisensory temporal alignment is more accurate during active than passive or no movement. Currently, it is not known whether this is the case in children. Thus, we used an audiotactile temporal order judgment task (TOJ) to investigate multisensory temporal perception during active and passive arm movement in 6 to11-year-old blindfolded children (N = 87). Results indicated that temporal precision during active movement improved relative to passive movement only in younger children (6-year-olds). The active-passive difference diminished with age, with precision in the passive condition improving. Conversely, the temporal bias developed similarly in active and passive conditions, showing an age-related decrease, whereby tactile stimuli must precede auditory ones to be perceived as simultaneous. The study suggests that the maturation of the audiotactile temporal perception during movement involves two distinct mechanisms: an early sensorimotor integration of predicted sensory feedback and a faster-developing multisensory integration aligned with kinesthetic feedback, each following different developmental trajectories. SUMMARY: We proposed a task to study whether active and passive movements affect temporal perception of audiotactile stimuli in children. Temporal precision increased during the active than passive movement in younger children (6-year-old). The active-passive difference diminished with age, with precision in the passive condition improving. The maturation of the audio-tactile perception during movement involves the sensorimotor and multisensory integration mechanisms with two different developmental trajectories.