PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Femke Maij
AU  - Christian Seegelke
AU  - W. Pieter Medendorp
AU  - Tobias Heed
TI  - External location of touch is constructed post-hoc based on limb choice
AID  - 10.1101/549832
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 549832
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/11/549832.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/11/549832.full
AB  - When humans indicate on which hand a tactile stimulus occurred, they often err when their hands are crossed. This finding seemingly supports the view that the automatically determined touch location in external space affects limb assignment: the crossed right hand is localized in left space, and this conflict presumably provokes hand assignment errors. Here, participants judged on which hand the first of two stimuli, presented during a bimanual movement, had occurred, and then indicated its external location by a reach-to-point movement. When participants incorrectly chose the hand stimulated second, they pointed to where that hand had been at the correct, first time point, though no stimulus had occurred at that location. This behavior suggests that stimulus localization depended on hand assignment, not vice versa. It is, thus, incompatible with the notion of automatic computation of external stimulus location upon occurrence. Instead, humans construct external touch location post-hoc and on demand.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.