Perceived Timing of Active Head Movements at Different Speeds

Abstract

The central nervous system must determine which sensory events occur at the same time. Actively moving the head corresponds with large changes in the relationship between the observer and the environment, sensorimotor processing, and spatiotemporal perception. Numerous studies have shown that head movement onset must precede the onset of other sensory events in order to be perceived as simultaneous, indicating that head movement perception is slow. In addition, active head movement perception has been shown to be dependent on head movement velocity in that head movement perception is slower when the head moves faster. However, these findings were obtained between-subjects, so they can only be interpreted as participants who move their head faster than other participants require the head to move even earlier than comparison stimuli to be perceived as simultaneous. Previous findings cannot address the question of whether active head movement perception changes at higher speeds. The present study used a within-subjects design to measure the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) between active head movement speeds and a comparison sound stimulus to properly characterize the correlation between the velocity and perception of head movement onset. Our results clearly show that i) head movement perception is faster when the head moves faster within-subjects, ii) active head movement onset must still precede the onset of other sensory events (Average PSS: -123ms to -52ms) in order to be perceived as occurring simultaneously even at the fastest speeds (Average peak velocity: 76 deg/s to 257 deg/s). We conclude that head movement perception is slow, but that this delay is minimized with increased speed.