Preferred auditory temporal processing regimes and auditory-motor synchronization.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kern P
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8642338 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Musical ensemble performance requires temporally precise interpersonal action coordination. To play in synchrony, ensemble musicians presumably rely on anticipatory mechanisms that enable them to predict the timing of sounds produced by co-performers. Previous studies have shown that individuals differ in their ability to predict upcoming tempo changes in paced finger-tapping tasks (indexed by cross-correlations between tap timing and pacing events) and that the degree of such prediction influences the accuracy of sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) and interpersonal coordination in dyadic tapping tasks. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated the neural correlates of auditory temporal predictions during SMS in a within-subject design. Hemodynamic responses were recorded from 18 musicians while they tapped in synchrony with auditory sequences containing gradual tempo changes under conditions of varying cognitive load (achieved by a simultaneous visual n-back working-memory task comprising three levels of difficulty: observation only, 1-back, and 2-back object comparisons). Prediction ability during SMS decreased with increasing cognitive load. Results of a parametric analysis revealed that the generation of auditory temporal predictions during SMS recruits (1) a distributed network of cortico-cerebellar motor-related brain areas (left dorsal premotor and motor cortex, right lateral cerebellum, SMA proper and bilateral inferior parietal cortex) and (2) medial cortical areas (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex). While the first network is presumably involved in basic sensory prediction, sensorimotor integration, motor timing, and temporal adaptation, activation in the second set of areas may be related to higher-level social-cognitive processes elicited during action coordination with auditory signals that resemble music performed by human agents.
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Project description:The ability to synchronize body movements with quasi-regular auditory stimuli represents a fundamental trait in humans at the core of speech and music. Despite the long trajectory of the study of such ability, little attention has been paid to how acoustic features of the stimuli and individual differences can modulate auditory-motor synchrony. Here, by exploring auditory-motor synchronization abilities across different effectors and types of stimuli, we revealed that this capability is more restricted than previously assumed. While the general population can synchronize to sequences composed of the repetitions of the same acoustic unit, the synchrony in a subgroup of participants is impaired when the unit's identity varies across the sequence. In addition, synchronization in this group can be temporarily restored by being primed by a facilitator stimulus. Auditory-motor integration is stable across effectors, supporting the hypothesis of a central clock mechanism subserving the different articulators but critically shaped by the acoustic features of the stimulus and individual abilities.
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Project description:In temporal-or dynamic-attending theory, it is proposed that motor activity helps to synchronize temporal fluctuations of attention with the timing of events in a task-relevant stream, thus facilitating sensory selection. Here we develop a mechanistic behavioural account for this theory by asking human participants to track a slow reference beat, by noiseless finger pressing, while extracting auditory target tones delivered on-beat and interleaved with distractors. We find that overt rhythmic motor activity improves the segmentation of auditory information by enhancing sensitivity to target tones while actively suppressing distractor tones. This effect is triggered by cyclic fluctuations in sensory gain locked to individual motor acts, scales parametrically with the temporal predictability of sensory events and depends on the temporal alignment between motor and attention fluctuations. Together, these findings reveal how top-down influences associated with a rhythmic motor routine sharpen sensory representations, enacting auditory 'active sensing'.
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Project description:Perception of synchrony between one's own action (a finger tap) and the sensory feedback thereof (a visual flash or an auditory pip) can be recalibrated after exposure to an artificially inserted delay between them (temporal recalibration effect: TRE). TRE might be mediated by a compensatory shift of motor timing (when did I tap?) and/or the sensory timing of the feedback (when did I hear/see the feedback?). To examine this, we asked participants to voluntarily tap their index finger at a constant pace while receiving visual or auditory feedback (a flash or pip) that was either synced or somewhat delayed relative to the tap. Following this exposure phase, they then performed a simple reaction time (RT) task to measure the sensory timing of the exposure stimulus, and a sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) task (tapping in synchrony with a flash or pip as pacing stimulus) to measure the point of subjective synchrony between the tap and pacing stimulus. The results showed that after exposure to delayed auditory feedback, participants tapped earlier (~21.5 ms) relative to auditory pacing stimuli (= temporal recalibration) and reacted faster (~5.6 ms) to auditory stimuli. For visual exposure and test stimuli, there were no such compensatory effects. These results indicate that adjustments of audio-motor synchrony can to some extent be explained by a change in the speed of auditory sensory processing. We discuss this in terms of an attentional modulation of sensory processing.
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Project description:Moving to a speech rhythm can enhance verbal processing in the listener by increasing temporal expectancies (Falk and Dalla Bella, 2016). Here we tested whether this hypothesis holds for prosodically diverse languages such as German (a lexical stress-language) and French (a non-stress language). Moreover, we examined the relation between motor performance and the benefits for verbal processing as a function of language. Sixty-four participants, 32 German and 32 French native speakers detected subtle word changes in accented positions in metrically structured sentences to which they previously tapped with their index finger. Before each sentence, they were cued by a metronome to tap either congruently (i.e., to accented syllables) or incongruently (i.e., to non-accented parts) to the following speech stimulus. Both French and German speakers detected words better when cued to tap congruently compared to incongruent tapping. Detection performance was predicted by participants' motor performance in the non-verbal cueing phase. Moreover, tapping rate while participants tapped to speech predicted detection differently for the two language groups, in particular in the incongruent tapping condition. We discuss our findings in light of the rhythmic differences of both languages and with respect to recent theories of expectancy-driven and multisensory speech processing.
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Project description:Auditory processing can be enhanced by motor system activity. During auditory-motor synchronization, motor activity guides auditory attention and thus facilitates auditory processing through active sensing. Previous research on enhanced auditory processing through motor synchronization has been limited to easy tasks with simple stimulus material. Further, the mechanisms and brain regions underlying this synchronization are unclear. We investigated the effect of motor synchronization on auditory processing with naturalistic, musical auditory material in a discrimination task. We further assessed how previous musical training and cortical thickness of specific brain regions relate to different aspects of auditory-motor synchronization. We conducted an auditory-motor experiment in 139 adults. The task involved melody discrimination and beat tapping synchronization. Additionally, 68 participants underwent structural MRI. We found that individuals with better auditory-motor synchronization accuracy showed improved melody discrimination, and that melody discrimination was better in trials with higher tapping accuracy. However, melody discrimination was worse in the tapping than in the listening only condition. Longer previous musical training and thicker Heschl's gyri were associated with better melody discrimination and better tapping synchrony. Post hoc analyses furthermore pointed to a possible moderating role of frontal regions. Our results suggest that motor synchronization can enhance auditory discrimination abilities through active sensing, but that this beneficial effect can be counteracted by dual-task inference when the two tasks are too challenging. Moreover, prior experience and structural brain differences influence the extent to which an individual can benefit from motor synchronization in complex listening. This could inform future research directed at development of personalized training programs for hearing ability.
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Project description:Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) display difficulties in perception-action coupling when engaging in tasks requiring predictive timing. We investigated the influence of awareness on auditory-motor adjustments to small and large rhythmic perturbations in the auditory sequence to examine whether children synchronize their movements automatically or through planning and whether those adjustments occur consciously or subconsciously. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to assess functional connectivity patterns underlying different adjustment strategies. Thirty-two children aged 7-11 participated, including children with DCD and their typically developing (TD) peers with and without musical training. All children automatically adjusted their motor responses to small rhythmic perturbations by employing the anticipatory mode, even when those changes were consciously undetectable. Planned adjustments occurred only when children consciously detected large fluctuations (Δ 20%), which required a shift from predictive to reactive strategies. Compared to TD peers, children with DCD showed reduced interhemispheric connectivity during planned adjustments and displayed similar neural patterns regardless of task constraints. Notably, they benefited from rhythmic entrainment despite having increased variability and lower perceptual acuity. Musical training was associated with enhanced auditory-perceptual timing, reduced variability, and increased interhemispheric coherence. These insights are important for the therapeutic application of auditory/rhythm-based interventions in children with DCD.
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