Spontaneous Eye Movements reveal Tactile Localization on Canonical Body Representations
(2026) 24th International Multisensory Research Forum - IMRF 2026 — Location: Genoa, Italy (24.June.2026)
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- Abstract
- Humans constantly move when interacting with their environment. This constant movement complicates the processing of tactile stimuli because localizing tactile input on the body requires considering postural information. According to a well-established view, stimuli are localized on the body based on a representation of the body in its current posture, via a process called tactile remapping. Recently, an alternative view has emerged, arguing that stimuli are localized on a representation of the body in its default posture. We confronted these accounts by recording the spontaneous gaze behavior of participants in response to tactile stimuli on the fingers of their right hand, placed in different postures. With the hand palm-down, the left-to-right direction of gaze shifts reflected the thumb-to-little arrangement of the fingers. Placing the hand palm-up reversed this pattern. Critically, when the hand was placed in a mid-pronated posture, tactile stimuli induced horizontal gaze shifts similar to those observed in the palm-down posture, despite the vertical arrangement of the fingers. Moreover, crossing the right hand to the left of the body shifted the gaze rightward, opposite to the current hand position. Our findings reveal multisensory associations between the somatosensory and oculomotor systems, as tactile stimuli resulted in spontaneous gaze shifts that were not elicited by the task. These tactile-oculomotor associations reveal that tactile localization activates representations of the body in canonical postures, questioning the long-standing view that the current body posture is automatically and continuously computed. Rather, we argue that these computations are not performed if not necessary.
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Gerin, S., & Andres, M. (2026, June 24). Spontaneous Eye Movements reveal Tactile Localization on Canonical Body Representations. 24th International Multisensory Research Forum - IMRF 2026, Genoa, Italy. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/276034