Temporal prediction abilities are mediated by motor effector and rhythmic expertise

Sounds familiar(?): Expertise with specific musical genres modulates timing perception and micro-level synchronization to auditory stimuli

Musical expertise improves the precision of timing perception and performance – but is this expertise generic, or is it tied to the specific style(s) and genre(s) of one’s musical training? We asked expert musicians from three musical genres (folk, jazz, and EDM/hip-hop) to align click tracks and tap in synchrony with genre-specific and genre-neutral sound stimuli to determine the perceptual center (“P-center”) and variability (“beat bin”) for each group of experts. We had three stimulus categories – Organic, Electronic, and Neutral sounds – each of which had a 2 × 2 design of the acoustic factors Attack (fast/slow) and Duration (short/long). We found significant effects of Genre expertise, and a significant interaction for both P-center and P-center variability: folk and jazz musicians synchronize to sounds typical of folk and jazz in a different manner than the EDM/hip-hop producers. The results show that expertise in a specific musical genre affects our low-level perceptions of sounds as well as their affordance(s) for joint action/synchronization. The study provides new insights into the effects of active long-term musical enculturation and skill acquisition on basic sensorimotor synchronization and timing perception, shedding light on the important question of how nature and nurture intersect in the development of our perceptual systems.

How movements shape the perception of time

In order to keep up with a changing environment, mobile organisms must be capable of deciding both where and when to move. This precision necessitates a strong sense of time, as otherwise we would fail in many of our movement goals. Yet, despite this intrinsic link, only recently have researchers begun to understand how these two features interact. Primarily, two effects have been observed: movements can bias time estimates, but they can also make them more precise. Here we review this literature and propose that both effects can be explained by a Bayesian cue combination framework, in which movement itself affords the most precise representation of time, which can influence perception in either feedforward or active sensing modes.

The early development of tempo adjustment and synchronization during joint drumming: A study of 18- to 42-month-old children

Humans have a unique ability to coordinate their rhythmic behaviors with those of others. Previous studies have demonstrated the early development of spontaneous responses to external rhythmic stimuli; however, there is little evidence regarding when and how infants begin to adjust their movement tempo and synchronize it with that of others, due to the difficulty of detecting continuous rhythmic movements of infants in a laboratory setting. In the current study, we analyzed children in age-groups of 18, 30, and 42 months and adapted a joint-drumming task used by Kirschner and Tomasello (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2009, 102, 299-314). The children were enticed to play the drum under four conditions (Speed: 400 or 600 ms ISI; Partner: mother or robot). The results demonstrated that children's ability to adjust their tempo and synchronize with that of 600 ms ISI, which is slower than the spontaneous motor tempo of children at these ages, starts to develop at around 30-month-olds. We also found early evidence of this ability in 18-month-old infants who drummed with their mother. These findings indicate that children's ability for rhythmic coordination develops dynamically between 18 and 30 months of age, and a child's social partner plays an important role in facilitating this development.

Music therapy in pediatric asthma improves pulmonary function while reducing hospitalizations

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate music therapy (MT), in conjunction with standard care, as a complementary option for asthma management in pediatric patients.Methods: 173 children were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 1) Music: a single individualized MT session along with a recorder and journal with instructions for home use; 2) Music Plus: weekly group MT sessions along with a recorder and journal for home use; or 3) Control: standard of care. Primary endpoints included pulmonary function tests (FEV1, FVC, FEF25-75, PEF), hospitalizations, ER visits, missed school days, and quality of life (Juniper).Results: Significant intergroup differences relative to Controls were observed for FEV1/FVC (Music and Music Plus, p < 0.05) and FEF25-75 (Music Plus; p < 0.01). Music Plus participants experienced fewer hospitalizations compared to Controls (p < 0.001), corresponding to 1.16 fewer hospitalizations per patient-year. Caregivers' perception of their children's QOL significantly increased in the Music (p = 0.011) and Music Plus (p < 0.001) groups compared to Controls.Conclusion: These results reflect MT's potential to favorably impact pediatric asthma management as a child-friendly, low-risk intervention. Further research is needed to substantiate the possible benefits of incorporating MT into standard treatment regimens.

Endogenous Expectations for Sequence Continuation after Auditory Beat Accelerations and Decelerations Revealed by P3a and Induced Beta-Band Responses

People commonly synchronize taps to rhythmic sounds and can continue tapping after the sounds stop, indicating that time intervals between sounds can be internalized. Here, we investigate what happens in the brain after simply listening to auditory beats in order to understand more about the automatic internalization of temporal intervals without tapping. Electroencephalograms were recorded while musicians attended to accelerating, decelerating, or steady click sequences. Evoked responses and induced beta power modulations (13-30 Hz) were examined for one beat following the last physical beat of each sequence (termed the silent beat) and compared to responses obtained during physical beats near the sequence endings. In response to the silent beat, P3a was observed with the largest amplitude occurring after accelerations and the smallest after decelerations. Late beta power modulations were also found after the silent beat, and the magnitude of the beta-power suppressions was significantly correlated with the concurrent P3a amplitudes. In contrast, physical beats elicited P2 responses and early beta suppressions, likely reflecting a combination of stimulus-related processing and temporal prediction. These results suggest that the activities observed after the silent beat were not produced via sustained entrainment after the physical beats, but via automatically-formed expectation for an additional beat. Therefore, beta modulations may be generated endogenously by expectation violation, while P3a amplitudes may relate to strength of expectation, with acceleration endings causing the strongest expectations for sequence continuation.

The beneficial effect of synchronized action on motor and perceptual timing in children

We examined the role of action in motor and perceptual timing across development. Adults and children aged 5 or 8 years old learned the duration of a rhythmic interval with or without concurrent action. We compared the effects of sensorimotor versus visual learning on subsequent timing behaviour in three different tasks: rhythm reproduction (Experiment 1), rhythm discrimination (Experiment 2) and interval discrimination (Experiment 3). Sensorimotor learning consisted of sensorimotor synchronization (tapping) to an isochronous visual rhythmic stimulus (ISI = 800 ms), whereas visual learning consisted of simply observing this rhythmic stimulus. Results confirmed our hypothesis that synchronized action during learning systematically benefitted subsequent timing performance, particularly for younger children. Action-related improvements in accuracy were observed for both motor and perceptual timing in 5 years olds and for perceptual timing in the two older age groups. Benefits on perceptual timing tasks indicate that action shapes the cognitive representation of interval duration. Moreover, correlations with neuropsychological scores indicated that while timing performance in the visual learning condition depended on motor and memory capacity, sensorimotor learning facilitated an accurate representation of time independently of individual differences in motor and memory skill. Overall, our findings support the idea that action helps children to construct an independent and flexible representation of time, which leads to coupled sensorimotor coding for action and time.

The influence of visual cues on temporal anticipation and movement synchronization with musical sequences

Music presents a complex case of movement timing, as one to several dozen musicians coordinate their actions at short time-scales. This process is often directed by a conductor who provides a visual beat and guides the ensemble through tempo changes. The current experiment tested the ways in which audio-motor coordination is influenced by visual cues from a conductor's gestures, and how this influence might manifest in two ways: movements used to produce sound related to the music, and movements of the upper-body that do not directly affect sound output. We designed a virtual conductor that was derived from morphed motion capture recordings of human conductors. Two groups of participants (29 musicians and 28 nonmusicians, to test the generalizability of visuo-motor synchronization to non-experts) were shown the virtual conductor, a simple visual metronome, or a stationary circle while completing a drumming task that required synchronization with tempo-changing musical sequences. We measured asynchronies and temporal anticipation in the drumming task, as well as participants' upper-body movement using motion capture. Drumming results suggest the conductor generally improves synchronization by facilitating anticipation of tempo changes in the music. Motion capture results showed that the conductor visual cue elicited more structured head movements than the other two visual cues for nonmusicians only. Multiple regression analysis showed that the nonmusicians with less rigid movement and high anticipation had lower asynchronies. Thus, the visual cues provided by a conductor might serve to facilitate temporal anticipation and more synchronous movement in the general population, but might also cause rigid ancillary movements in some non-experts.

Intrinsic Rhythmicity Predicts Synchronization-Continuation Entrainment Performance

Rhythmic entrainment-defined as a stable temporal relationship between external periodic signals and endogenous rhythmic processes-allows individuals to coordinate with environmental rhythms. However, the impact of inter-individual differences on entrainment processes as a function of the tempo of external periodic signals remain poorly understood. To better understand the effects of endogenous differences and varying tempos on rhythmic entrainment, 20 young healthy adults participated in a spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) task and synchronization-continuation tasks at three experimental tempos (50, 70, and 128 bpm; 1200, 857, and 469 ms inter onset interval (IOI)). We hypothesized that SMT task performance and tempo would influence externally paced synchronization-continuation task behavior. Indeed, intrinsic rhythmicity assessed through the SMT task predicted performance in the externally paced task, allowing us to characterize differences in entrainment behavior between participants with low and high endogenous rhythmicity. High rhythmicity individuals, defined by better SMT performance, deviated from externally paced pulses sooner than individuals with low rhythmicity, who were able to maintain externally paced pulses for longer. The magnitude of these behavioral differences depended on the experimental tempo of the synchronization-continuation task. Our results indicate that differences in intrinsic rhythmicity vary between individuals and relate to tempo-dependent entrainment performance.

Expertise-dependent motor somatotopy of music perception

Precise mapping between sound and motion underlies successful communication and information transmission in speech and musical performance. Formation of the map typically undergoes plastic changes in the neuronal network between auditory and motor regions through training. However, to what extent the map is somatotopically-tuned so that auditory information can specifically modulate the corticospinal system responsible for the relevant motor action has not been elucidated. Here we addressed this issue by assessing the excitability of corticospinal system including the primary motor cortex (M1) innervating the hand intrinsic muscles by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation while trained pianists and musically-untrained individuals (non-musicians) were listening to either piano tones or noise. M1 excitability was evaluated at two anatomically-independent muscles of the hand. The results demonstrated elevation of M1 excitability at not all but one specific muscle while listening to piano tones in the pianists, but no excitability change in both of the muscles in the non-musicians. However, listening to noise did not elicit any changes of M1 excitability at both muscles in both the pianists and the non-musicians. These findings indicate that auditory information representing the trained motor action tunes M1 excitability in a non-uniform, somatotopically-specific manner, which is likely associated with multimodal experiences in musical training.