Time versus causal inferences: Action-outcome learning and prediction differentially shape the experience of causality and simultaneity.

The human brain is capable of recalibrating the perceived timing of events to achieve multisensory temporal grouping. For example, systematic delays separating an action and its subsequent outcome are reduced in perception, promoting the perception of simultaneity and recalibrating people's experience of causality. In this study we investigated whether sensorimotor recalibration depends on the ability to predict the specific outcome an action produces and whether this process differs for simultaneity and causal judgments. Across two experiments, we replicated the classic recalibration effect: repeated exposure to action-outcome delays shifted both simultaneity and causality windows toward the adapted delay. Outcome predictions did not modulate recalibration of simultaneity, but they impacted causal experience. Moreover, recalibration was overall larger for causal than simultaneity judgments, suggesting that causal perception relies more strongly on learned action-outcome contingencies than temporal perception alone.