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Musical interactions are a common and multimodal part of an infant’s daily experiences. Infants hear their parents sing while watching their lips move and see their older siblings dance along to music playing over the radio. Here, we explore whether 8- to 12-month-old infants associate musical rhythms they hear with synchronous visual displays by tracking their dynamic visual attention to matched and mismatched displays. Visual attention was measured using eye-tracking while they attended to a screen displaying two videos of a finger tapping at different speeds. These videos were presented side by side while infants listened to an auditory rhythm (high or low pitch) synchronized with one of the two videos. Infants attended more to the low-pitch trials than to the highpitch trials but did not display a preference for attending to the synchronous hand over the asynchronous hand within trials. Exploratory evidence, however, suggests that tempo, pitch, and rhythmic complexity interactively engage infants’ visual attention to a tapping hand, especially when that hand is aligned with the auditory stimulus. For example, when the rhythm was complex and the auditory stimulus was low in pitch, infants attended to the fast hand more when it aligned with the auditory stream than to misaligned trials. These results suggest that the audiovisual integration in rhythmic non-speech contexts is influenced by stimulus properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Highlights When exposed to rhythmic patterns with temporal regularity, adults exhibit an inherent ability to extract and anticipate an underlying sequence of regularly spaced beats, which is internally constructed, as beats are experienced even when no events occur at beat positions (e.g., in the case of rests). Perception of rhythm and synchronization to periodicity is indispensable for development of cognitive functions, social interaction, and adaptive behavior. We evaluated neural oscillatory activity in premature newborns (n = 19, mean age, 32 ± 2.59 weeks gestational age) during exposure to an auditory rhythmic sequence, aiming to identify early traces of periodicity encoding and rhythm processing through entrainment of neural oscillations at this stage of neurodevelopment. The rhythmic sequence elicited a systematic modulation of alpha power, synchronized to expected beat locations coinciding with both tones and rests, and independent of whether the beat was preceded by tone or rest. In addition, the periodic alpha‐band fluctuations reached maximal power slightly before the corresponding beat onset times. Together, our results show neural encoding of periodicity in the premature brain involving neural oscillations in the alpha range that are much faster than the beat tempo, through alignment of alpha power to the beat tempo, consistent with observations in adults on predictive processing of temporal regularities in auditory rhythms. In response to the presented rhythmic pattern, systematic modulations of alpha power showed that the premature brain extracted the temporal regularity of the underlying beat. In contrast to evoked potentials, which are greatly reduced when there is no sounds event, the modulation of alpha power occurred for beats coinciding with both tones and rests in a predictive way. The findings provide the first evidence for the neural coding of periodicity in auditory rhythm perception before the age of term. In response to the presented rhythmic pattern, systematic modulations of alpha power showed that the premature brain extracted the temporal regularity of the underlying beat.In contrast to evoked potentials, which are greatly reduced when there is no sounds event, the modulation of alpha power occurred for beats coinciding with both tones and rests in a predictive way.The findings provide the first evidence for the neural coding of periodicity in auditory rhythm perception before the age of term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music training is associated with better beat processing in the auditory modality. However, it is unknown how rhythmic training that emphasizes visual rhythms, such as dance training, might affect beat processing, nor whether training effects in general are modality specific. Here we examined how music and dance training interacted with modality during audiovisual integration and synchronization to auditory and visual isochronous sequences. In two experiments, musicians, dancers, and controls completed an audiovisual integration task and an audiovisual target-distractor synchronization task using dynamic visual stimuli (a bouncing figure). The groups performed similarly on the audiovisual integration tasks (Experiments 1 and 2). However, in the finger-tapping synchronization task (Experiment 1), musicians were more influenced by auditory distractors when synchronizing to visual sequences, while dancers were more influenced by visual distractors when synchronizing to auditory sequences. When participants synchronized with whole-body movements instead of finger-tapping (Experiment 2), all groups were more influenced by the visual distractor than the auditory distractor. Taken together, this study highlights how training is associated with audiovisual processing, and how different types of visual rhythmic stimuli and different movements alter beat perception and production outcome measures. Implications for the modality appropriateness hypothesis are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tau rhythms are largely defined by sound responsive alpha band (~8–13 Hz) oscillations generated largely within auditory areas of the superior temporal gyri. Studies of tau have mostly employed magnetoencephalography or intracranial recording because of tau's elusiveness in the electroencephalogram. Here, we demonstrate that independent component analysis (ICA) decomposition can be an effective way to identify tau sources and study tau source activities in EEG recordings. Subjects (N = 18) were passively exposed to complex acoustic stimuli while the EEG was recorded from 68 electrodes across the scalp. Subjects' data were split into 60 parallel processing pipelines entailing use of five levels of high‐pass filtering (passbands of 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 Hz), three levels of low‐pass filtering (25, 50, and 100 Hz), and four different ICA algorithms (fastICA, infomax, adaptive mixture ICA [AMICA], and multi‐model AMICA [mAMICA]). Tau‐related independent component (IC) processes were identified from this data as being localized near the superior temporal gyri with a spectral peak in the 8–13 Hz alpha band. These "tau ICs" showed alpha suppression during sound presentations that was not seen for other commonly observed IC clusters with spectral peaks in the alpha range (e.g., those associated with somatomotor mu, and parietal or occipital alpha). The choice of analysis parameters impacted the likelihood of obtaining tau ICs from an ICA decomposition. Lower cutoff frequencies for high‐pass filtering resulted in significantly fewer subjects showing a tau IC than more aggressive high‐pass filtering. Decomposition using the fastICA algorithm performed the poorest in this regard, while mAMICA performed best. The best combination of filters and ICA model choice was able to identify at least one tau IC in the data of ~94% of the sample. Altogether, the data reveal close similarities between tau EEG IC dynamics and tau dynamics observed in MEG and intracranial data. Use of relatively aggressive high‐pass filters and mAMICA decomposition should allow researchers to identify and characterize tau rhythms in a majority of their subjects. We believe adopting the ICA decomposition approach to EEG analysis can increase the rate and range of discoveries related to auditory responsive tau rhythms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate perception and production of auditory rhythms are key for human behaviors such as speech and music. Auditory rhythms in music range in their complexity: complex rhythms (based on non-integer ratios between successive tone durations) are more difficult to perceive and produce than simple rhythms (based on integer ratios). The physiological activity supporting this behavioral difference is not well understood. In a within-subjects design, we addressed how rhythm complexity affects cardiac dynamics during auditory perception and production. Musically trained adults listened to and synchronized with simple and complex auditory rhythms while their cardiac activity was recorded. Participants identified missing tones in the rhythms during the Perception condition and tapped on a keyboard to synchronize with the rhythms in the Synchronization condition. Participants were equally accurate at identifying missing tones in simple and complex rhythms during the Perception condition. Tapping synchronization was less accurate and less precise with complex rhythms than with simple rhythms. Linear cardiac analyses showed a slower mean heart rate and greater heart rate variability during perception than synchronization for both simple and complex rhythms; only nonlinear recurrence quantification analyses reflected cardiac differences between simple and complex auditory rhythms. Nonlinear cardiac dynamics were also more deterministic (predictable) during rhythm perception than synchronization. Individual differences during tapping showed that greater heart rate variability was correlated with poorer synchronization. Overall, these findings suggest that linear measures of musicians' cardiac activity reflect global task variability while nonlinear measures additionally reflect stimulus rhythm complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythmic entrainment echoes—rhythmic brain responses that outlast rhythmic stimulation—can demonstrate endogenous neural oscillations entrained by the stimulus rhythm. Here, we tested for such echoes in auditory perception. Participants detected a pure tone target, presented at a variable delay after another pure tone that was rhythmically modulated in amplitude. In four experiments involving 154 human (female and male) participants, we tested (1) which stimulus rate produces the strongest entrainment echo and, inspired by the tonotopical organization of the auditory system and findings in nonhuman primates, (2) whether these are organized according to sound frequency. We found the strongest entrainment echoes after 6 and 8 Hz stimulation, respectively. The best moments for target detection (in phase or antiphase with the preceding rhythm) depended on whether sound frequencies of entraining and target stimuli matched, which is in line with a tonotopical organization. However, for the same experimental condition, best moments were not always consistent across experiments. We provide a speculative explanation for these differences that relies on the notion that neural entrainment and repetition-related adaptation might exercise competing opposite influences on perception. Together, we find rhythmic echoes in auditory perception that seem more complex than those predicted from initial theories of neural entrainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans readily recognize familiar rhythmic patterns, such as isochrony (equal timing between events) across a wide range of rates. This reflects a facility with perceiving the relative timing of events, not just absolute interval durations. Several lines of evidence suggest this ability is supported by precise temporal predictions arising from forebrain auditory–motor interactions. We have shown previously that male zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata , which possess specialized auditory–motor networks and communicate with rhythmically patterned sequences, share our ability to flexibly recognize isochrony across rates. To test the hypothesis that flexible rhythm pattern perception is linked to vocal learning, we ask whether female zebra finches, which do not learn to sing, can also recognize global temporal patterns. We find that females can flexibly recognize isochrony across a wide range of rates but perform slightly worse than males on average. These findings are consistent with recent work showing that while females have reduced forebrain song regions, the overall network connectivity of vocal premotor regions is similar to males and may support predictions of upcoming events. Comparative studies of male and female songbirds thus offer an opportunity to study how individual differences in auditory–motor connectivity influence perception of relative timing, a hallmark of human music perception. • Female zebra finches can recognize temporal regularity across a wide range of rates. • Regularity detection extends to tempi far outside conspecific male song rates. • Females were slightly worse than males at flexibly detecting temporal regularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Μusicians are reported to have enhanced auditory processing. This study aimed to assess auditory perception in Greek musicians with respect to their musical specialization and to compare their auditory processing with that of non-musicians. Auditory processing elements evaluated were speech recognition in babble, rhythmic advantage in speech recognition, short-term working memory, temporal resolution, and frequency discrimination threshold detection. All groups were of 12 participants. Three distinct experimental groups tested included western classical musicians, Byzantine chanters, and percussionists. The control group consisted of 12 non-musicians. The results revealed: (i) a rhythmic advantage for word recognition in noise for classical musicians (M = 12.42) compared to Byzantine musicians (M = 9.83), as well as for musicians compared to non-musicians (U = 120.50, p = 0.019), (ii) better frequency discrimination threshold of Byzantine musicians (M = 3.17, p = 0.002) compared to the other two musicians' group for the 2000 Hz region, (iii) statistically significant better working memory for musicians (U = 123.00, p = 0.025) compared to non-musicians. Musical training enhances elements of auditory processing and may be used as an additional rehabilitation approach during auditory training, focusing on specific types of music for specific auditory processing deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of evidence suggests that steady‐state evoked potentials may be a useful measure of beat perception, particularly when obtaining traditional, explicit measures of beat perception is difficult, such as with infants or non‐human animals. Although attending to a stimulus is not necessary for most traditional applications of steady‐state evoked potentials, it is unknown how attention affects steady‐state evoked potentials that arise in response to beat perception. Additionally, most applications of steady‐state evoked potentials to measure beat perception have used repeating rhythms or real music. Therefore, it is unclear how the steady‐state response relates to the robust beat perception that occurs with non‐repeating rhythms. Here, we used electroencephalography to record participants' brain activity as they listened to non‐repeating musical rhythms while either attending to the rhythms or while distracted by a concurrent visual task. Non‐repeating auditory rhythms elicited steady‐state evoked potentials at perceived beat frequencies (perception was validated in a separate sensorimotor synchronization task) that were larger when participants attended to the rhythms compared with when they were distracted by the visual task. Therefore, although steady‐state evoked potentials appear to index beat perception to non‐repeating musical rhythms, this technique may be limited to when participants are known to be attending to the stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to extract rhythmic structure is important for the development of language, music, and social communication. Although previous studies show infants’ brains entrain to the periodicities of auditory rhythms and even different metrical interpretations (e.g., groups of two vs three beats) of ambiguous rhythms, whether the premature brain tracks beat and meter frequencies has not been explored previously. We used high-resolution electroencephalography while premature infants (n = 19, 5 male; mean age, 32 6 2.59 weeks gestational age) heard two auditory rhythms in the incubators. We observed selective enhancement of the neural response at both beat- and meter-related frequencies. Further, neural oscillations at the beat and duple (groups of 2) meter were phase aligned with the envelope of the auditory rhythmic stimuli. Comparing the relative power at beat and meter frequencies across stimuli and frequency revealed evidence for selective enhancement of duple meter. This suggests that even at this early stage of development, neural mechanisms for processing auditory rhythms beyond simple sensory coding are present. Our results add to a few previous neuroimaging studies demonstrating discriminative auditory abilities of premature neural networks. Specifically, our results demonstrate the early capacities of the immature neural circuits and networks to code both simple beat and beat grouping (i.e., hierarchical meter) regularities of auditory sequences. Considering the importance of rhythm processing for acquiring language and music, our findings indicate that even before birth, the premature brain is already learning this important aspect of the auditory world in a sophisticated and abstract way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speech processing is subserved by neural oscillations. Through a mechanism termed entrainment, oscillations can maintain speech rhythms beyond speech offset. We here tested whether entrainment affects higher-level language comprehension. We conducted four online experiments on 80 participants each. Our paradigm combined acoustic entrainment to repetitive prosodic contours with subsequent visual presentation of ambiguous target sentences (e.g. "Max sees Tom and Karl laughs"). We aimed to elicit faulty segmentations through the duration of the preceding contour (e.g. the segment "Max sees Tom and Karl" leads to an error at "laughs"). Across experiments, self-paced reading data showed that participants employed the duration of the initial prosodic contour to predict the duration of the upcoming segments. Prosody entrainment may thus serve a predictive function during language comprehension, not only helping the reader to segment the current speech input, but also inducing temporal predictions about upcoming segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that visual moving and multisensory stimuli can efficiently mediate rhythmic information. It is possible, therefore, that the previously reported auditory dominance in rhythm perception is due to the use of nonoptimal visual stimuli. Yet it remains unknown whether exposure to multisensory or visual-moving rhythms would benefit the processing of rhythms consisting of nonoptimal static visual stimuli. Using a perceptual learning paradigm, we tested whether the visual component of the multisensory training pair can affect processing of metric simple two integer-ratio nonoptimal visual rhythms. Participants were trained with static (AVstat), moving-inanimate (AVinan), or moving-animate (AVan) visual stimuli along with auditory tones and a regular beat. In the pre- and posttraining tasks, participants responded whether two static-visual rhythms differed or not. Results showed improved posttraining performance for all training groups irrespective of the type of visual stimulation. To assess whether this benefit was auditory driven, we introduced visual-only training with a moving or static stimulus and a regular beat (Vinan). Comparisons between Vinan and Vstat showed that, even in the absence of auditory information, training with visual-only moving or static stimuli resulted in an enhanced posttraining performance. Overall, our findings suggest that audiovisual and visual static or moving training can benefit processing of nonoptimal visual rhythms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain activity abounds with rhythmic patterns (Capilla et al., 2021; Groppe et al., 2013; Keitel & Gross, 2016) that reflect ongoing fluctuations of neuronal excitability (Adrian & Matthews, 1934; Bishop, 1932). Linking brain rhythms and cognition through rhythmic sampling is particularly attractive because it allows using global mechanistic principles to bridge two different levels of explanation: normal brain function, which involves rhythmic activity, and human behaviour and experiences. In addition, it leaves open the possibility of actively intervening in the sampling process through external stimulation of brain rhythms, either to advance theory, for example, to close in on the causal role of brain rhythms for cognition and behaviour (see section "Can we manipulate brain rhythms to take control of cognition?") This makes closed-loop BCI experiments a rigorous benchmark for any assumed brain rhythm-behaviour link, with the added potential of drawing stronger conclusions as to the causal role of neural rhythms in cognition (also see Ramot & Martin, 2022). [Extracted from the article]

It has been hypothesized that internal oscillations can synchronize (i.e., entrain) to external environmental rhythms, thereby facilitating perception and behaviour. To date, evidence for the link between the phase of neural oscillations and behaviour has been scarce and contradictory; moreover, it remains an open question whether the brain can use this tentative mechanism for active temporal prediction. In our present study, we conducted a series of auditory pitch discrimination tasks with 181 healthy participants in an effort to shed light on the proposed behavioural benefits of rhythmic cueing and entrainment. In the three versions of our task, we observed no perceptual benefit of purported entrainment: targets occurring in‐phase with a rhythmic cue provided no perceptual benefits in terms of discrimination accuracy or reaction time when compared with targets occurring out‐of‐phase or targets occurring randomly, nor did we find performance differences for targets preceded by rhythmic versus random cues. However, we found a surprising effect of cueing frequency on reaction time, in which participants showed faster responses to cue rhythms presented at higher frequencies. We therefore provide no evidence of entrainment, but instead a tentative effect of covert active sensing in which a faster external rhythm leads to a faster communication rate between motor and sensory cortices, allowing for sensory inputs to be sampled earlier in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regular distribution of auditory stimuli over time can facilitate perception and attention. However, such effects have to date only been observed in separate studies using either linguistic or non‐linguistic materials. This has made it difficult to compare the effects of rhythmic regularity on attention across domains. The current study was designed to provide an explicit within‐subject comparison of reaction times and accuracy in an auditory target‐detection task using sequences of regularly and irregularly distributed syllables (linguistic material) and environmental sounds (non‐linguistic material). We explored how reaction times and accuracy were modulated by regular and irregular rhythms in a sound‐ (non‐linguistic) and syllable‐monitoring (linguistic) task performed by native Spanish speakers (N = 25). Surprisingly, we did not observe that regular rhythm exerted a facilitatory effect on reaction times or accuracy. Further exploratory analysis showed that targets that appear later in sequences of syllables and sounds are identified more quickly. In late targets, reaction times in stimuli with a regular rhythm were lower than in stimuli with irregular rhythm for linguistic material, but not for non‐linguistic material. The difference in reaction times on stimuli with regular and irregular rhythm for late targets was also larger for linguistic than for non‐linguistic material. This suggests a modulatory effect of rhythm on linguistic stimuli only once the percept of temporal isochrony has been established. We suggest that temporal isochrony modulates attention to linguistic more than to non‐linguistic stimuli because the human auditory system is tuned to process speech. The results, however, need to be further tested in confirmatory studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly agreed that vision is more sensitive to spatial information, while audition is more sensitive to temporal information. When both visual and auditory information are available simultaneously, the modality appropriateness hypothesis predicts that, depending on the task, the most appropriate (i.e., reliable) modality dominates perception. While previous research mainly focused on discrepant information from different sensory inputs to scrutinize the modality appropriateness hypothesis, the current study aimed at investigating the modality appropriateness hypothesis when multimodal information was provided in a nondiscrepant and simultaneous manner. To this end, participants performed a temporal rhythm reproduction task for which the auditory modality is known to be the most appropriate. The experiment comprised an auditory (i.e., beeps), a visual (i.e., flashing dots), and an audiovisual condition (i.e., beeps and dots simultaneously). Moreover, constant as well as variable interstimulus intervals were implemented. Results revealed higher accuracy and lower variability in the auditory condition for both interstimulus interval types when compared to the visual condition. More importantly, there were no differences between the auditory and the audiovisual condition across both interstimulus interval types. This indicates that the auditory modality dominated multimodal perception in the task, whereas the visual modality was disregarded and hence did not add to reproduction performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an experiment to investigate possible vestibular effects on finger tapping to an auditory anapaest rhythm. In a sample of 10 subjects, index finger acceleration and tapping force were recorded along with extensor/flexor activity and the associated electroencephalographic activity measured at central and cerebellar surface electrodes. In a prior session with a standard short air-conducted 500-Hz pip, vestibular evoked myogenic potential thresholds were measured and subsequently used to set the acoustic intensity. During the main experiment subjects were asked to synchronise tapping to the pips arranged in the anapaest at two different frequencies, 500 Hz vs 5 kHz, so that only the low-frequency high-intensity condition was a vestibular, as well as an auditory stimulus. We hypothesised that a vestibular effect would manifest in an interaction between the frequency and intensity factors for a range of dependent measures of tapping performance. No clear evidence was found for vestibular effects, but this was likely due to the confounding effects of an independent effect of intensity and the relative weakness of the acoustic vestibular stimulus. However, the data did show novel evidence for two distinct timing processes for the flexion and extension stages of a tap cycle and two distinct timing strategies, which we refer to as 'staccato' and 'legato', characterised by different profiles of force and extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythmic-synchronization-based interaction is an emerging interaction technique where multiple controls with different rhythms are displayed in visual form, and the user can select one of them by matching the corresponding rhythm. These techniques can be used to control smart objects in environments where there may be interfering auditory stimuli that contrast with the visual rhythm (e.g., to control Smart TVs while playing music), and this could compromise users' ability to synchronize. Moreover, these techniques require certain reflex skills to properly synchronize with the displayed rhythm, and these skills may vary depending on the age and gender of the users. To determine the impact of interfering auditory stimuli, age, and gender on users' ability to synchronize, we conducted a user study with 103 participants. Our results show that there are no significant differences between the conditions of interfering and noninterfering auditory stimuli and that synchronization ability decreases with age, with males performing better than females—at least as far as younger users are concerned. As a result, two implications emerge: first, users are capable of focusing only on visual rhythm ignoring the auditory interfering rhythm, so listening to an interfering rhythm should not be a major concern for synchronization; second, as age and gender have an impact, these systems may be designed to allow for customization of rhythm speed so that different users can choose the speed that best suits their reflex skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A surface texture is perceived through both the sound and vibrations produced while being explored by our fingers. Because of their common origin, both modalities have a strong influence on each other, particularly at above 60 Hz for which vibrotactile perception and pitch perception share common neural processes. However, whether the sensation of rhythm is shared between audio and haptic perception is still an open question. In this study, we show striking similarities between the audio and haptic perception of rhythmic changes, and demonstrate the interaction of both modalities below 60 Hz. Using a new surface-haptic device to synthesize arbitrary audio-haptic textures, psychophysical experiments demonstrate that the perception threshold curves of audio and haptic rhythmic gradients are the same. Moreover, multimodal integration occurs when audio and haptic rhythmic gradients are congruent. We propose a multimodal model of rhythm perception to explain these observations. These findings suggest that audio and haptic signals are likely to be processed by common neural mechanisms also for the perception of rhythm. They provide a framework for audio-haptic stimulus generation that is beneficial for nonverbal communication or modern human-machine interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aim. Neurofeedback (NFB) is a therapeutic method based on monitoring the electroencephalogram (EEG) and providing feedback on the brain activity of subjects. The aim of the pilot study was to investigate the effect of lower-beta or sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) (12-15 Hz) NFB training on amplitudes and latencies of late auditory event-related potentials (aERP) components N100, N200, P300 in Go-No go task of auditory discrimination. Methods. Each of 9 healthy participants aged 25-40 years (4 male) had 20 daily sessions of SMR neurofeedback training. The aERP was recorded 5 times: before NFB, after 5, 10, and 20 sessions, and one m onth after the last session. Results. The results showed a statistically significant decrease in N100, N200, and P300 latencies at Fz, Cz, and Pz regions. No significant effect of NFB training on amplitudes of components N100, N200 and N300 was found. Conclusion. The obtained results suggest that NFB training exerts its effect on the processes of auditory cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Professional disk jockeys (DJs) are an under-studied population whose performance involves creating new musical experiences by combining existing musical materials with a high level of temporal precision. In contemporary electronic dance music, these materials have a stable tempo and are composed with the expectation for further transformation during performance by a DJ for the audience of dancers. Thus, a fundamental aspect of DJ performance is synchronizing the tempo and phase of multiple pieces of music, so that over seconds or even minutes, they may be layered and transitioned without disrupting the rhythmic pulse. This has been accomplished traditionally by manipulating the speed of individual music pieces "by ear," without additional technological synchronization aids. However, the cumulative effect of this repeated practice on auditory tempo perception has not yet been evaluated. Well-known phenomena of experience-dependent plasticity in other populations, such as musicians, prompts the question of whether such effects exist in DJs in their domain of expertise. This pilot study examined auditory judgments of tempo in 10 professional DJs with experience mixing by ear, compared to 7 percussionists, 12 melodic instrumental musicians, and 11 untrained controls. Participants heard metronome sequences between 80 and 160 beats per minute (BPM) and estimated the tempo. In their most-trained tempo range, 120–139 BPM, DJs were more accurate (lower absolute percent error) than untrained participants. Within the DJ group, 120–139 BPM exhibited greater accuracy than slower tempos of 80–99 or 100–119 BPM. DJs did not differ in accuracy compared to percussionists or melodic musicians on any BPM range. Percussionists were more accurate than controls for 100–119 and 120–139 BPM. The results affirm the experience-dependent skill of professional DJs in temporal perception, with comparable performance to conventionally trained percussionists and instrumental musicians. Additionally, the pattern of results suggests a tempo-specific aspect to this training effect that may be more pronounced in DJs than percussionists and musicians. As one of the first demonstrations of enhanced auditory perception in this unorthodox music expert population, this work opens the way to testing whether DJs also have enhanced rhythmic production abilities, and investigating the neural substrates of this skill compared to conventional musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We sought to establish norms and correlates for the Musical Ear Test (MET), an objective test of musical ability. A large sample of undergraduates at a Canadian university (N > 500) took the 20-min test, which provided a Total score as well as separate scores for its Melody and Rhythm subtests. On each trial, listeners judged whether standard and comparison auditory sequences were the same or different. Norms were derived as percentiles, Z-scores, and T-scores. The distribution of scores was approximately normal without floor or ceiling effects. There were no gender differences on either subtest or the total score. As expected, scores on both subtests were correlated with performance on a test of immediate recall for nonmusical auditory stimuli (Digit Span Forward). Moreover, as duration of music training increased, so did performance on both subtests, but starting lessons at a younger age was not predictive of better musical abilities. Listeners who spoke a tone language exhibited enhanced performance on the Melody subtest but not on the Rhythm subtest. The MET appears to have adequate psychometric characteristics that make it suitable for researchers who seek to measure musical abilities objectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interoceptive accuracy is an index of the ability to perceive an individual's internal bodily state, including heartbeat and respiration. Individual differences in interoceptive accuracy influence emotional recognition through autonomic nervous activity. However, the precise mechanism by which interoceptive accuracy affects autonomic reactivity remains unclear. Here, we investigated how cardiac reactivity induced by a non-affective external rhythm differed among individuals, using a heartbeat counting task. Because individuals with poor interoceptive accuracy cannot distinguish an external rhythm from their cardiac cycles, it has been hypothesized that the interoceptive effect on heart rate works differently in individuals with good interoceptive accuracy and those with poor interoceptive accuracy. Study participants observed a visual or auditory stimulus presented at a rhythm similar to the participants' resting heart rates. The stimulus rhythm was gradually changed from that of their resting heart rate, and we recorded electrocardiographs while participants were exposed to the stimuli. Individuals with good interoceptive accuracy exhibited a deceleration in heart rate when the rhythm of the auditory stimulus changed. In contrast, in the group with poor interoceptive accuracy, the heart rate decreased only when the stimulus became faster. They were unable to distinguish the rhythm of their own heartbeat from that of the external rhythm; therefore, we propose that such individuals recognize the stimuli at the pace of their heart rate. Individuals with good interoceptive accuracy were able to distinguish their heart rates from the external rhythm. A modality difference was not observed in this study, which suggests that both visual and auditory stimuli help mimic heart rate. These results may provide physiological evidence that autonomic reactivity influences the perception of the internal bodily state, and that interoception and the autonomic state interact to some degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Irregular rhythms are identified by accumulating timing information. • Accumulation of timing information occurs without leak. • A detection model fails to account for the behavioral results. • The timing accuracy of auditory pulses excels timing of visual or tactile stimuli. Perceiving the temporal regularity in a sequence of repetitive sensory events facilitates the preparation and execution of relevant behaviors with tight temporal constraints. How we estimate temporal regularity from repeating patterns of sensory stimuli is not completely understood. We developed a decision-making task in which participants had to decide whether a train of visual, auditory, or tactile pulses, had a regular or an irregular temporal pattern. We tested the hypothesis that subjects categorize stimuli as irregular by accumulating the time differences between the predicted and observed times of sensory pulses defining a temporal rhythm. Results suggest that instead of waiting for a single large temporal deviation, participants accumulate timing-error signals and judge a pattern as irregular when the amount of evidence reaches a decision threshold. Model fits of bounded integration showed that this accumulation occurs with negligible leak of evidence. Consistent with previous findings, we show that participants perform better when evaluating the regularity of auditory pulses, as compared with visual or tactile stimuli. Our results suggest that temporal regularity is estimated by comparing expected and measured pulse onset times, and that each prediction error is accumulated towards a threshold to generate a behavioral choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the procedural learning, retention, and reactivation of temporal sensorimotor sequences in children with and without developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Twenty typically-developing (TD) children and 12 children with DCD took part in this study. The children were required to tap on a keyboard, synchronizing with auditory or visual stimuli presented as an isochronous temporal sequence, and practice non-isochronous temporal sequences to memorize them. Immediate and delayed retention of the audio-motor and visuo-motor non-isochronous sequences were tested by removing auditory or visual stimuli immediately after practice and after a delay of 2 h. A reactivation test involved reintroducing the auditory and visual stimuli after the delayed recall. Data were computed via circular analyses to obtain asynchrony, the stability of synchronization and errors (i.e., the number of supplementary taps). Firstly, an overall deficit in synchronization with both auditory and visual isochronous stimuli was observed in DCD children compared to TD children. During practice, further improvements (decrease in asynchrony and increase in stability) were found for the audio-motor non-isochronous sequence compared to the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence in both TD children and children with DCD. However, a drastic increase in errors occurred in children with DCD during immediate retention as soon as the auditory stimuli were removed. Reintroducing auditory stimuli decreased errors in the audio-motor sequence for children with DCD. Such changes were not seen for the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence, which was equally learned, retained and reactivated in DCD and TD children. All these results suggest that TD children benefit from both auditory and visual stimuli to memorize the sequence, whereas children with DCD seem to present a deficit in integrating an audio-motor sequence in their memory. The immediate effect of reactivation suggests a specific dependency on auditory information in DCD. Contrary to the audio-motor sequence, the visuo-motor sequence was both learned and retained in children with DCD. This suggests that visual stimuli could be the best information for memorizing a temporal sequence in DCD. All these results are discussed in terms of a specific audio-motor coupling deficit in DCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study. To directly improve the capacity to discriminate musical sound’s parameters by the cochlear implanted children who participated in the designed training activity. Also, speech recognition in difficult sound environments is indirectly improved. Materials and method. The experimental study was organized as an orchestra of musical bells and melody chimes. The group was represented by 20 cochlear implanted children aged 4 to 17 years old. They participated 6 months for orchestra training. The capacity of all the subjects to discriminate the rhythm, tonality and timbre of the musical sounds was tested before starting the rehabilitative activity and after six months of musical training. Results. After six months of musical training, all the children showed significant improved capabilities of discrimination of sound parameters comparing with the initial testing results. Conclusions. Musical training for cochlear implanted children can contribute to an increased music enjoyment and quality of life for this category of patients, by providing better discriminatory skills regarding musical parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rhythmic movements spontaneously synchronize with auditory rhythms at various frequency ratios. The emergence of more complex relationships--for instance, frequency ratios of 1:2 and 1:3--is enhanced by adding a congruent accentuation pattern (binary for 1:2 and ternary for 1:3), resulting in a 1:1 movement-accentuation relationship. However, this benefit of accentuation on movement synchronization appears to be stronger for the ternary pattern than for the binary pattern. Here, we investigated whether this difference in accent-induced movement synchronization may be related to a difference in the neural tracking of these accentuation profiles. Accented and control unaccented auditory sequences were presented to participants who concurrently produced finger taps at their preferred frequency, and spontaneous movement synchronization was measured. EEG was recorded during passive listening to each auditory sequence. The results revealed that enhanced movement synchronization with ternary accentuation was accompanied by enhanced neural tracking of this pattern. Larger EEG responses at the accentuation frequency were found for the ternary pattern compared with the binary pattern. Moreover, the amplitude of accent-induced EEG responses was positively correlated with the magnitude of accent-induced movement synchronization across participants. Altogether, these findings show that the dynamics of spontaneous auditory-motor synchronization is strongly driven by the multi-time-scale sensory processing of auditory rhythms, highlighting the importance of considering neural responses to rhythmic sequences for understanding and enhancing synchronization performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cochlear implants (CIs) are biomedical devices that restore sound perception for people with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss. Most postlingually deafened CI users are able to achieve excellent speech recognition in quiet environments. However, current CI sound processors remain limited in their ability to deliver fine spectrotemporal information, making it difficult for CI users to perceive complex sounds. Limited access to complex acoustic cues such as music, environmental sounds, lexical tones, and voice emotion may have significant ramifications on quality of life, social development, and community interactions. The purpose of this review article is to summarize the literature on CIs and music perception, with an emphasis on music training in pediatric CI recipients. The findings have implications on our understanding of noninvasive, accessible methods for improving auditory processing and may help advance our ability to improve sound quality and performance for implantees. Music training, particularly in the pediatric population, may be able to continue to enhance auditory processing even after performance plateaus. The effects of these training programs appear generalizable to non-trained musical tasks, speech prosody and, emotion perception. Future studies should employ rigorous control groups involving a non-musical acoustic intervention, standardized auditory stimuli, and the provision of feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting the timing of incoming information allows the brain to optimize information processing in dynamic environments. Behaviorally, temporal expectations have been shown to facilitate processing of events at expected time points, such as sounds that coincide with the beat in musical rhythm. Yet, temporal expectations can develop based on different forms of structure in the environment, not just the regularity afforded by a musical beat. Little is still known about how different types of temporal expectations are neurally implemented and affect performance. Here, we orthogonally manipulated the periodicity and predictability of rhythmic sequences to examine the mechanisms underlying beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations, respectively. Behaviorally and using EEG, we looked at the effects of beat-based and memory-based expectations on auditory processing when rhythms were task-relevant or task-irrelevant. At expected time points, both beat-based and memory-based expectations facilitated target detection and led to attenuation of P1 and N1 responses, even when expectations were task-irrelevant (unattended). For beat-based expectations, we additionally found reduced target detection and enhanced N1 responses for events at unexpected time points (e.g., off-beat), regardless of the presence of memory-based expectations or task relevance. This latter finding supports the notion that periodicity selectively induces rhythmic fluctuations in neural excitability and furthermore indicates that, although beat-based and memory-based expectations may similarly affect auditory processing of expected events, their underlying neural mechanisms may be different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regularity of acoustic rhythms allows predicting a target embedded within a stream thereby improving detection performance and reaction times in spectral detection tasks. In two experiments we examine whether temporal regularity enhances perceptual sensitivity and reduces reaction times using a temporal shift detection task. Participants detected temporal shifts embedded at different positions within a sequence of quintet–sounds. Narrowband quintets were centered around carrier frequencies of 200 Hz, 1100 Hz, or 3100 Hz and presented at presentation rates between 1–8 Hz. We compared rhythmic sequences to control conditions where periodicity was reduced or absent and tested whether perceptual benefits depend on the presentation rate, the spectral content of the sounds, and task difficulty. We found that (1) the slowest rate (1 Hz) led to the largest behavioral effect on sensitivity. (2) This sensitivity improvement is carrier-dependent, such that the largest improvement is observed for low-frequency (200 Hz) carriers compared to 1100 Hz and 3100 Hz carriers. (3) Moreover, we show that the predictive value of a temporal cue and that of a temporal rhythm similarly affect perceptual sensitivity. That is, both the cue and the rhythm induce confident temporal expectancies in contrast to an aperiodic rhythm, and thereby allow to effectively prepare and allocate attentional resources in time. (4) Lastly, periodic stimulation reduces reaction times compared to aperiodic stimulation, both at perceptual threshold as well as above threshold. Similarly, a temporal cue allowed participants to optimally prepare and thereby respond fastest. Overall, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that periodicity leads to optimized predictions and processing of forthcoming input and thus to behavioral benefits. Predictable temporally cued sounds provide a similar perceptual benefit to periodic rhythms, despite an additional uncertainty of target position within periodic sequences. Several neural mechanisms may underlie our findings, including the entrainment of oscillatory activity of neural populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep inertia is a decline in cognition one may experience upon and following awakening. A recent study revealed that an alarm sound perceived as melodic by participants displayed a significant relationship to reports of reductions in perceived sleep inertia. This current research builds on these findings by testing the effect melody and rhythm exhibit on sleep inertia for subjects awakening in their habitual environments. Two test Groups (A and B; N = 10 each) completed an online psychomotor experiment and questionnaire in two separate test sessions immediately following awakening from nocturnal sleep. Both groups responded to a control stimulus in the first session, while in the second session, Group A experienced a melodic treatment, and Group B a rhythmic treatment. The results show that the melodic treatment significantly decreased attentional lapses, false starts, and had a significantly improved psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) performance score than the control. There was no significant result for reaction time or response speed. Additionally, no significant difference was observed for all PVT metrics between the control-rhythmic conditions. The results from this analysis support melodies' potential to counteract symptoms of sleep inertia by the observed increase in participant vigilance following waking from nocturnal sleep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auditory perception is improved when stimuli are predictable, and this effect is evident in a modulation of the activity of neurons in the auditory cortex as shown previously. Human listeners can better predict the presence of duration deviants embedded in stimulus streams with fixed interonset interval (isochrony) and repeated duration pattern (regularity), and neurons in the auditory cortex of macaque monkeys have stronger sustained responses in the 60–140 ms post‐stimulus time window under these conditions. Subsequently, the question has arisen whether isochrony or regularity in the sensory input contributed to the enhancement of the neuronal and behavioural responses. Therefore, we varied the two factors isochrony and regularity independently and measured the ability of human subjects to detect deviants embedded in these sequences as well as measuring the responses of neurons the primary auditory cortex of macaque monkeys during presentations of the sequences. The performance of humans in detecting deviants was significantly increased by regularity. Isochrony enhanced detection only in the presence of the regularity cue. In monkeys, regularity increased the sustained component of neuronal tone responses in auditory cortex while isochrony had no consistent effect. Although both regularity and isochrony can be considered as parameters that would make a sequence of sounds more predictable, our results from the human and monkey experiments converge in that regularity has a greater influence on behavioural performance and neuronal responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That attention is a fundamentally rhythmic process has recently received abundant empirical evidence. The essence of temporal attention, however, is to flexibly focus in time. Whether this function is constrained by an underlying rhythmic neural mechanism is unknown. In six interrelated experiments, we behaviourally quantify the sampling capacities of periodic temporal attention during auditory or visual perception. We reveal the presence of limited attentional capacities, with an optimal sampling rate of ~1.4 Hz in audition and ~0.7 Hz in vision. Investigating the motor contribution to temporal attention, we show that it scales with motor rhythmic precision, maximal at ~1.7 Hz. Critically, motor modulation is beneficial to auditory but detrimental to visual temporal attention. These results are captured by a computational model of coupled oscillators, that reveals the underlying structural constraints governing the temporal alignment between motor and attention fluctuations. That attention is a rhythmic process has received abundant evidence. Here, the authors reveal the natural sampling rate of auditory and visual periodic temporal attention. Both are antagonistically modulated by overt motor activity, a result generalised in a dynamical model of coupled oscillators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Delta (0.5–4 Hz) oscillations are endogenous rhythms of the motor system and can be generated independently from motor beta oscillations. • Motor delta oscillations encode neural motor trajectories and are visible in the dynamics of most basic motor acts. • Motor delta oscillations encode sensory temporal contextual information. • Motor delta oscillations shape sensory processes by imposing temporal constraints on the sampling of sensory information. • Motor delta oscillations optimize the parsing, encoding and processing of slow linguistic information. In the motor cortex, beta oscillations (∼12–30 Hz) are generally considered a principal rhythm contributing to movement planning and execution. Beta oscillations cohabit and dynamically interact with slow delta oscillations (0.5–4 Hz), but the role of delta oscillations and the subordinate relationship between these rhythms in the perception-action loop remains unclear. Here, we review evidence that motor delta oscillations shape the dynamics of motor behaviors and sensorimotor processes, in particular during auditory perception. We describe the functional coupling between delta and beta oscillations in the motor cortex during spontaneous and planned motor acts. In an active sensing framework, perception is strongly shaped by motor activity, in particular in the delta band, which imposes temporal constraints on the sampling of sensory information. By encoding temporal contextual information, delta oscillations modulate auditory processing and impact behavioral outcomes. Finally, we consider the contribution of motor delta oscillations in the perceptual analysis of speech signals, providing a contextual temporal frame to optimize the parsing and processing of slow linguistic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is defined as a specific deficit in the processing of auditory information along the central auditory nervous system, including bottom-up and top-down neural connectivity. Even though music comprises a big part of audition, testing music perception in APD population has not yet gained wide attention in research. This work tests the hypothesis that deficits in rhythm perception occur in a group of subjects with APD. The primary focus of this study is to measure perception of a simple auditory rhythm, i.e., short isochronous sequences of beats, in APD children and to compare their performance to age-matched normal controls. The secondary question is to study the relationship between cognition and auditory processing of rhythm perception. We tested 39 APD children and 25 control children aged between 6 and 12 years via (a) clinical APD tests, including a monaural speech in noise test, (b) isochrony task, a test measuring the detection of small deviations from perfect isochrony in a isochronous beats sequence, and (c) two cognitive tests (auditory memory and auditory attention). APD children scored worse in isochrony task compared to the age-matched control group. In the APD group, neither measure of cognition (attention nor memory) correlated with performance in isochrony task. Left (but not right) speech in noise performance correlated with performance in isochrony task. In the control group a large correlation (r = −0.701, p = 0.001) was observed between isochrony task and attention, but not with memory. The results demonstrate a deficit in the perception of regularly timed sequences in APD that is relevant to the perception of speech in noise, a ubiquitous complaint in this condition. Our results suggest (a) the existence of a non-attention related rhythm perception deficit in APD children and (b) differential effects of attention on task performance in normal vs. APD children. The potential beneficial use of music/rhythm training for rehabilitation purposes in APD children would need to be explored.

AIM: Ultradian rhythm can change the sympathetic and parasympathetic system activation by affecting cerebral lateralization. In this study, the reaction times (RTs) to regular and irregular auditory stimuli were tested and compared with resting period findings, by shifting of ultradian rhythm to sympathetic activation period. METHODS: This study which received the necessary ethical permission was carried out with the voluntary participation of right handed 23 female and 7 male students. After measuring participants' blood pressure, heart rate and nasal dominance in the resting period, right and left-hand RTs against auditory stimuli were measured. Sympathetic activation was provided by 5 minutes running of the participants on a treadmill after doubled the heart rate of the resting period. The sympathetic activation phase was confirmed by related tests and RT measurements were repeated. The data were analyzed using the paired t-test fortime-dependent comparisons, as they have a normal distribution. RESULTS: Right and left-hand RTs were shortened after sympathetic activation, compared to resting period in both stimulus types (P<0,05). In regular stimuli, although the right-hand RT is faster than the left, the difference is not significant neither in resting period nor in sympathetic activation. In irregular stimuli, the left-hand RT was faster than the right, both in the resting and sympathetic activation period (p<0,01). CONCLUSION: In regular stimuli, the right hand may have an advantage over the left in the motor component of the reflex due to the learned automatic motor movement speed. However, in irregular stimuli, it was thought that the speed of the sensory component of the reflex, due to known speed of the right hemisphere in the process of processing non-verbal sounds increases with the involvement of attention also and the left hand shortens the RT to irregular stimuli in both resting and sympathetic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Earlier investigations based on word and sentence repetition tasks had revealed that the most prevalent metrical pattern in German (the trochee)--unlike the iambic pattern-- facilitates articulation in patients with apraxia of speech (AOS; e.g., Aichert, Späth, & Ziegler, 2016), confirming that segmental and prosodic aspects of speech production interact. In this study, we investigated if articulation in apraxic speakers also benefits from auditory priming by speech with a regular rhythm. Furthermore, we asked if the advantage of regular speech rhythm, if present, is confined to impairments at the motor planning stage of speech production (i.e., AOS) or if it also applies to phonological encoding impairments. Method: Twelve patients with AOS, 12 aphasic patients with postlexical phonological impairment (PI), and 36 neurologically healthy speakers were examined. A sequential synchronization paradigm based on a sentence completion task was conducted in conditions where we independently varied the metrical regularity of the prime sentence (regular vs. irregular prime sentence) and the metrical regularity of the target word (trochaic vs. iambic). Results: Our data confirmed the facilitating effect of regular (trochaic) word stress on speech accuracy in patients with AOS (target effect). This effect could, for the first time, also be demonstrated in individuals with PI. Moreover, the study also revealed an influence of the metrical regularity of speech input in both patient groups (prime effect). Conclusions: Patients with AOS and patients with PI exploited rhythmic cues in the speech of a model speaker for the initiation and the segmental realization of words. There seems to be a robust metrical influence on speech at both the phonological and the phonetic planning stages of speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that moving in synchrony with auditory stimuli boosts attention allocation and verbal learning. Furthermore rhythmic tones are processed more efficiently than temporally random tones ('timing effect'), and this effect is increased when participants actively synchronize their motor performance with the rhythm of the tones, resulting in auditory-motor synchronization. Here, we investigated whether this applies also to sequences of linguistic stimuli (syllables). We compared temporally irregular syllable sequences with two temporally regular conditions where either the interval between syllable onsets (stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA) or the interval between the syllables' vowel onsets was kept constant. Entrainment to the stimulus presentation frequency (1 Hz) and event-related potentials were assessed in 24 adults who were instructed to detect pre-defined deviant syllables while they either pedaled or sat still on a stationary exercise bike. We found larger 1 Hz entrainment and P300 amplitudes for the SOA presentation during motor activity. Furthermore, the magnitude of the P300 component correlated with the motor variability in the SOA condition and 1 Hz entrainment, while in turn 1 Hz entrainment correlated with auditory-motor synchronization performance. These findings demonstrate that acute auditory-motor coupling facilitates phonetic encoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anisochrony of a stimulus sequence was manipulated parametrically to investigate whether rhythmic entrainment is stronger in the auditory modality than in the visual modality (Experiment 1), and whether it relies on top-down attention (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants had to respond as quickly as possible to a target presented after a sequence of either visual or auditory stimuli. The anisochrony of this sequence was manipulated parametrically, rather than in an all or none fashion; that is, it could range from smaller to larger deviations of the isochrony (0, 10, 20, 50, 100, 150 and 200 ms). We compared rhythmic entrainment patterns for auditory and visual modalities. Results showed a peak of entrainment for both isochrony and deviations of isochrony up to 50 ms (i.e., participants were equally fast both after the isochronous sequences and after 10, 20 and 50 ms deviations), suggesting that anisochronous sequences can also produce entrainment. Beyond this entrainment window, the reaction times became progressively slower. Surprisingly, no differences were found between the entrainment patterns for auditory and visual rhythms. In Experiment 2, we used a dualtask methodology by adding a working memory n-back task to the procedure of Experiment 1. Results did not show interference of the secondary task in either auditory or visual modalities, with participants showing the same entrainment pattern as in Experiment 1. These results suggest that rhythmic entrainment constitutes a cognitive process that occurs by default (automatically), regardless of the modality in which the stimuli are presented, and independent of top-down attention, to generate behavioural benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans spontaneously synchronize their movements with external auditory rhythms such as a metronome or music. Although such synchronization preferentially occurs toward simple 1:1 movement-stimulus frequency ratio, the extent to which spontaneous synchronization can also occur toward more complex frequency ratios remains largely unclear. The present study investigates the occurrence and dynamical stability of spontaneous auditory-motor synchronization at multiple frequency ratios. Participants performed index finger oscillations at their preferred tempo while listening to auditory metronomes with frequency progressively increasing or decreasing between 1 Hz and 6 Hz. The results demonstrated that participants' movements were not only entrained toward the 1:1 frequency ratio but also toward the 1:2 ratio. The occurrence and stability of these ratios differed as a function of the direction of frequency change. Participants synchronized to the 1:2 ratio and transitioned to a 1:1 ratio in the descending condition. In the ascending condition only the 1:1 ratio was sustained, for a longer extent than in the descending condition. These results show that the initial coordination pattern influenced pattern transition, demonstrating the occurrence of a hysteresis effect that is typical of complex system dynamics. These findings provide new insight into the mechanisms underlying the occurrence and stability of spontaneous movement synchronization to auditory rhythms. • Auditory-motor synchronization occurred spontaneously for 1:1 but also for 1:2 frequency ratios. • Hysteresis occurred with increasing vs decreasing auditory stimulus frequency. • Emergence of frequency ratios differed as a function of previous ratio adopted. • Transition was found from 1:2 to 1:1 frequency ratio but not the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We hypothesized that precise auditory processing facilitates second language learning. • Adult native Polish speakers living in the UK were tested. • Psychoacoustic thresholds were linked to vowel perception and grammatical judgment. • More successful language learners had more consistent frequency-following responses. • Auditory training could help facilitate language learners in some individuals. Abstract There is a great deal of individual variability in outcome in second language learning, the sources of which are still poorly understood. We hypothesized that individual differences in auditory processing may account for some variability in second language learning. We tested this hypothesis by examining psychoacoustic thresholds, auditory-motor temporal integration, and auditory neural encoding in adult native Polish speakers living in the UK. We found that precise English vowel perception and accurate English grammatical judgment were linked to lower psychoacoustic thresholds, better auditory-motor integration, and more consistent frequency-following responses to sound. Psychoacoustic thresholds and neural sound encoding explained independent variance in vowel perception, suggesting that they are dissociable indexes of sound processing. These results suggest that individual differences in second language acquisition success stem at least in part from domain-general difficulties with auditory perception, and that auditory training could help facilitate language learning in some individuals with specific auditory impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We investigated whether rhythm discrimination is mainly driven by the native language of the listener or by the fundamental design of the human auditory system and universal cognitive mechanisms shared by all people irrespective of rhythmic patterns in their native language. Method: In multiple experiments, we asked participants to listen to 2 continuous acoustic sequences and to determine whether their rhythms were the same or different (AX discrimination). Participants were native speakers of 4 languages with different rhythmic properties (Spanish, French, English, and German) to understand whether the predominant rhythmic patterns of a native language affect sensitivity, bias, and reaction time in detecting rhythmic changes in linguistic (Experiment 2) and in nonlinguistic (Experiments 1 and 2) acoustic sequences. We examined sensitivity and bias measures, as well as reaction times. We also computed Bayes factors in order to assess the effect of native language. Results: All listeners performed better (i.e., responded faster and manifested higher sensitivity and accuracy) when detecting the presence or absence of a rhythm change when the 1st stimulus in an AX test pair exhibited regular rhythm (i.e., a syllable-timed rhythmic pattern) than when the 1st stimulus exhibited irregular rhythm (i.e., stress-timed rhythmic pattern). This result pattern was observed both on linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli and was not modulated by the native language of the participant. Conclusion: We conclude that rhythm change detection is a fundamental function of a processing system that relies on general auditory mechanisms and is not modulated by linguistic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythmic movements produced by humans become spontaneously entrained to auditory rhythms in the environment. Evidence suggests that synchronisation to external auditory rhythms can contribute to the stabilisation of movements in time and space, opening new perspectives for motor training and rehabilitation. Here we compared the effects of single (1:1) and double (1:2) metronomes (i.e., one or two stimulations per preferred movement cycle) on spontaneous movement entrainment and stabilisation. We examined the spontaneous entrainment of self-paced hand-held pendulum swinging when single or double metronomes were presented either at the participant’s preferred tempo or slightly slower or faster (± 10%). The results showed that participants’ movements spontaneously entrained to auditory rhythms, and that the strength of this entrainment was the same for single and double metronomes. However, double metronomes decreased movement tempo stability, whereas single metronomes increased movement tempo stability compared to a control condition without a stimulus. These effects preferentially occurred for metronomes presented at participants’ preferred movement tempi and especially for participants whose movements were intrinsically more variable. Participants’ movement amplitude stability was also modulated in such a way that the stability of participants who were intrinsically less stable increased, whereas the stability of intrinsically more stable participants decreased with auditory rhythms, an effect that was stronger with double than single metronomes. Moreover, movement stabilisation in time and space were positively correlated, suggesting that tempo and amplitude stabilisation depend on similar processes and may be complementary. These findings provide new insight into the processes underlying auditory-motor entrainment and how auditory rhythms can be used to improve movement stability in time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stream segregation for a test sequence comprising high-frequency (H) and low-frequency (L) pure tones, presented in a galloping rhythm, is much greater when preceded by a constant-frequency induction sequence matching one subset than by an inducer configured like the test sequence; this difference persists for several seconds. It has been proposed that constant-frequency inducers promote stream segregation by capturing the matching subset of test-sequence tones into an on-going, pre-established stream. This explanation was evaluated using 2-s induction sequences followed by longer test sequences (12–20 s). Listeners reported the number of streams heard throughout the test sequence. Experiment 1 used LHL– sequences and one or other subset of inducer tones was attenuated (0–24 dB in 6-dB steps, and ∞). Greater attenuation usually caused a progressive increase in segregation, towards that following the constant-frequency inducer. Experiment 2 used HLH– sequences and the L inducer tones were raised or lowered in frequency relative to their test-sequence counterparts (ΔfI = 0, 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5 × ΔfT). Either change greatly increased segregation. These results are concordant with the notion of attention switching to new sounds but contradict the stream-capture hypothesis, unless a "proto-object" corresponding to the continuing subset is assumed to form during the induction sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been known that the auditory system is better suited to guide temporally precise behaviors like sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) than the visual system. Although this phenomenon has been studied for many years, the underlying neural and computational mechanisms remain unclear. Growing consensus suggests the existence of multiple, interacting, context-dependent systems, and that reduced precision in visuo-motor timing might be due to the way experimental tasks have been conceived. Indeed, the appropriateness of the stimulus for a given task greatly influences timing performance. In this review, we examine timing differences for sensorimotor synchronization and error correction with auditory and visual sequences, to inspect the underlying neural mechanisms that contribute to modality differences in timing. The disparity between auditory and visual timing likely relates to differences in the processing specialization between auditory and visual modalities (temporal vs. spatial). We propose this difference could offer potential explanation for the differing temporal abilities between modalities. We also offer suggestions as to how these sensory systems interface with motor and timing systems.

Music makes us move, and using bass instruments to build the rhythmic foundations of music is especially effective at inducing people to dance to periodic pulse-like beats. Here, we show that this culturally widespread practice may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds shape the neural representations of rhythmic input by boosting selective locking to the beat. Cortical activity was captured using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants listened to a regular rhythm or to a relatively complex syncopated rhythm conveyed either by low tones (130 Hz) or high tones (1236.8 Hz). We found that cortical activity at the frequency of the perceived beat is selectively enhanced compared with other frequencies in the EEG spectrum when rhythms are conveyed by bass sounds. This effect is unlikely to arise from early cochlear processes, as revealed by auditory physiological modeling, and was particularly pronounced for the complex rhythm requiring endogenous generation of the beat. The effect is likewise not attributable to differences in perceived loudness between low and high tones, as a control experiment manipulating sound intensity alone did not yield similar results. Finally, the privileged role of bass sounds is contingent on allocation of attentional resources to the temporal properties of the stimulus, as revealed by a further control experiment examining the role of a behavioral task. Together, our results provide a neurobiological basis for the convention of using bass instruments to carry the rhythmic foundations of music and to drive people to move to the beat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although music and dance are often experienced simultaneously, it is unclear what modulates their perceptual integration. This study investigated how two factors related to music-dance correspondences influenced audiovisual binding of their rhythms: the metrical match between the music and dance, and the kinematic familiarity of the dance movement. Participants watched a point-light figure dancing synchronously to a triple-meter rhythm that they heard in parallel, whereby the dance communicated a triple (congruent) or a duple (incongruent) visual meter. The movement was either the participant’s own or that of another participant. Participants attended to both streams while detecting a temporal perturbation in the auditory beat. The results showed lower sensitivity to the auditory deviant when the visual dance was metrically congruent to the auditory rhythm and when the movement was the participant’s own. This indicated stronger audiovisual binding and a more coherent bimodal rhythm in these conditions, thus making a slight auditory deviant less noticeable. Moreover, binding in the metrically incongruent condition involving self-generated visual stimuli was correlated with self-recognition of the movement, suggesting that action simulation mediates the perceived coherence between one’s own movement and a mismatching auditory rhythm. Overall, the mechanisms of rhythm perception and action simulation could inform the perceived compatibility between music and dance, thus modulating the temporal integration of these audiovisual stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]