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Multiple temporal references in sensorimotor synchronization with metrical auditory sequences

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Abstract

A local phase perturbation in an auditory sequence during synchronized finger tapping elicits an automatic phase correction response (PCR). The stimulus for the PCR is usually considered to be the most recent tap-tone asynchrony. In this study, participants tapped on target tones (“beats”) of isochronous tone sequences consisting of beats and subdivisions (1:n tapping). A phase perturbation was introduced either on a beat or on a subdivision. Both types of perturbation elicited a PCR, even though there was no asynchrony associated with a subdivision. Moreover, the PCR to a perturbed beat was smaller when an unperturbed subdivision followed than when there was no subdivision. The relative size of the PCRs to perturbed beats and subdivisions depended on tempo, on whether the subdivision was local or present throughout the sequence, and on whether or not participants engaged in mental subdivision, but not on whether or not taps were made on the subdivision level. The results show that phase correction in synchronization depends not merely on asynchronies but on perceptual monitoring of multiple temporal references within a metrical hierarchy.

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Notes

  1. Large et al. (2002) call the events at the lowest metrical level (IOI = 400 ms) beats and thus do not talk about subdivisions. However, the perceived main beat (tactus) was probably either at the 1,600-ms level (because of the modular structure of the sequences) or at the 800-ms level (because at this rate the beat salience is maximal), so that the events at the lowest level functioned as subdivisions.

  2. The experiment also contained sequences with much smaller, mostly subliminal EOSs (± 10 ms). The results, while generally consistent with those for the larger EOSs, were too variable to reach statistical significance and therefore are not reported.

  3. All intervals are reported here as specified or recorded by the MAX software. It is known from acoustic measurements that the real-time temporal intervals generated or recorded by MAX in this configuration were shorter by about 2.4%.

  4. Double standard errors are slightly smaller than two-tailed but slightly larger than one-tailed 95% confidence intervals. A one-tailed test against zero is justified here because mean PCRs are expected to be in the same direction as the EOS.

  5. Relative times of occurrence are defined as the asynchronies of taps relative to an isochronous 560-ms time grid initiated by the first beat-level tone.

  6. One type of sequence was missing in this design, namely sub EOS no beat with EOS = 0. During preparation of the materials it was overlooked that this sequence is not identical with the EOS = 0 versions of sub EOS + beat and sub + beat EOS.

  7. Evidently, this last instruction was difficult to follow. Three participants tapped so lightly with their left (subdivision) hand that the taps sometimes were not registered. This happened particularly when the subdivision hand tapped in phase with the beat hand. As this was the least interesting part of the data (the two hands were expected to show similar PCRs when tapping in phase with each other), no steps were taken to correct this problem. For each participant, there were still sufficient trials with complete data to compute an (albeit less reliable) estimate of the PCR in the subdivision hand.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NIH grant MH-51230. Experiments 3, 4, 5 and 6 and preparation of the manuscript were also partially supported by NIH grants DC-03663 (Elliot Saltzman, P.I.) and HD-01994 (Carol Fowler, P.I.). Thanks are due to these colleagues for their generous support, to Yoko Hoshi, Helen Sayward, and Susan Holleran for help with data analysis, and to Amandine Penel, Susan Holleran, and Peter Keller for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Experiment 1 was reported previously in Repp (2002b).

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    Bruno H. Repp

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Repp, B.H. Multiple temporal references in sensorimotor synchronization with metrical auditory sequences. Psychological Research 72, 79–98 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-006-0067-1

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