Abstract

Creating a coherent representation of our environment is highly dependent on integrating sensory signals into unified multisensory percepts. These percepts are not only multisensory but also synchronous despite the physical and processing time differences of the various signals. How perceptual synchrony is attained by the human brain is one of the most perplexing questions yet to be answered, with major implications about the philosophy and psychology of time. Although many issues still remain largely unknown, evidence suggests that synchrony perception is modulated by stimulus features, the individual’s age, and prior experience and exhibits abnormalities in pathology. In this chapter, we review the factors modulating our ability to align sensory inputs in time and summarize recent findings on the behavioral and neural correlates of perceptual synchrony.