{
  "abstract": "Vision can sample objects remotely and over a broad field, whereas touch is restricted to contacted skin and is often spatially serial however might outperform vision in resolution by transforming spatial information to a temporal code. This raises the question on how multisensory exploration is coordinated. We recorded gaze and or touch location in exploration of 60 three-dimensional surfaces with locally varying textures during visual, haptic and bimodal exploration while participants performed a same/different task, judging whether a second texture matched the first. In bimodal exploration, gaze and touch became more spatially similar than during unimodal exploration, while touch changed less than vision between unimodal and bimodal contexts. A temporal overlap analysis further showed that touch preceded gaze on average during the first 5 s of bimodal exploration. We then increased visual discriminability of the textures using cast-shadow illumination. A psychophysical pilot confirmed improved texture discrimination, and a new participant group showed a strong shift towards vision-leading exploration. Thus, sensory leadership during active visuo-haptic exploration is not fixed: touch can lead vision when texture information is important, but the balance adapts when visual information becomes more diagnostic.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Bournemouth University"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "V. Arab Ahmadi"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. Nasseri-Moghaddam"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. Toscani"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "A. Metzger"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/c2b2hvdddkgh4.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.10.31.763287",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.31.763287v1.full",
  "id": "c2b2hvdddkgh4",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.31.763287v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.31.763287v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-31",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/c2b2hvdddkgh4.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-03T12:20:53Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.10.31.763287",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.31.763287v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "When touch leads vision: flexible sensory leadership during active texture exploration",
  "title_text": "When touch leads vision: flexible sensory leadership during active texture exploration",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-04T00:21:15Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/c2b2hvdddkgh4",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}