Audio-tactile events can improve the interlimb coordination in juggling

Elementary reactive behavior can be improved in the case of cross-modal sensory interactions thanks to underlying multisensory integration mechanisms. Can this benefit be generalized to a challenging ongoing perceptive-motor performance? We choose a juggling task to examine this question. A central issue well-known in juggling lies in establishing and maintaining a specific temporal coordination among balls, hands, eyes and posture. Here, we tested whether providing additional timing information about the balls and hands motions by using external sound and tactile periodic stimulations improved the performance of jugglers. Results indicated that specific combination of auditory and tactile metronome led to a decrease of the spatiotemporal variability of the juggler’s performance. A contrario, degraded performances were obtained in the case of unimodal tactile metronome. We discuss these results in view of the understanding of the neuronal integration process implied in the audio-tactile interaction, and considering the well-known gating effect of movement on vibrotactile perception.