Using an hierarchical DDM, Ziliang showed that temporal expectations actually shortened non-decision times but reduced the drift rate (evidence accumulation) for expected versus unexpected or neutral forces: high correlations between the empirical data and simulated!

His two experiments revealed that temporal expectations consistently impaired participants’ ability to accurately judge the intensity of forces. This impairment was evident across behavioural metrics, including JND and d-prime in Experiment 1, as well as accuracy in Experiment 2.

To address these inconsistencies, he used a temporal cueing paradigm, associating auditory tones with the onset of tactile stimuli to induce temporal expectations. He quantified tactile discrimination accuracy, threshold, sensitivity, perceived intensity (Exp 1 and 2), and speed (Exp 2).

Experiment 3 showed that self-generated touch is robustly attenuated regardless of whether the two hands make contact.

Experiment 2 showed that the previously reported ‘enhancement’ effects are driven by the reference condition used.

Experiment 1 showed no evidence that action enhances the predicted touch when the hands do not make contact.

If you are #SfN2023, check out our lab posters on how action attenuates and does not enhance the predicted touch (Sunday afternoon, biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) as well as our related MEG study (Monday morning)!