Musical expertise generalizes to superior temporal scaling in a Morse code tapping task

Abstract

A key feature of the brain's ability to tell time and generate complex temporal patterns is its capacity to produce similar temporal patterns at different speeds. For example, humans can tie a shoe, type, or play an instrument at different speeds or tempi-a phenomenon referred to as temporal scaling. While it is well established that training improves timing precision and accuracy, it is not known whether expertise improves temporal scaling, and if so, whether it generalizes across skill domains. We quantified temporal scaling and timing precision in musicians and non-musicians as they learned to tap a Morse code sequence. We found that non-musicians improved significantly over the course of days of training at the standard speed. In contrast, musicians exhibited a high level of temporal precision on the first day, which did not improve significantly with training. Although there was no significant difference in performance at the end of training at the standard speed, musicians were significantly better at temporal scaling-i.e., at reproducing the learned Morse code pattern at faster and slower speeds. Interestingly, both musicians and non-musicians exhibited a Weber-speed effect, where temporal precision at the same absolute time was higher when producing patterns at the faster speed. These results are the first to establish that the ability to generate the same motor patterns at different speeds improves with extensive training and generalizes to non-musical domains.

Neural population clocks: Encoding time in dynamic patterns of neural activity.

“…simple intervals and durations and is well suited for motor preparation and anticipatory responses. however, we argue that a key difference regarding neural population clocks and ramping codes for time is that the latter are generally ill-suited to account for the generation of complex temporal patterns such as those that are used in temporal reproduction tasks or Morse code generation (Hardy & Buonomano, 2016;Hardy et al, 2018;Slayton et al, 2020). Thus, we predict that high-level integration areas may use high-dimensional dynamics such as neural sequences to encode time, providing downstream areas information to build lowdimensional ramp-like activity that can drive movements and temporal expectation.…”

Encoding time in neural dynamic regimes with distinct computational tradeoffs

“…Some forms of temporal processing require the ability to smoothly scale a time-varying motor pattern. For example, the ability to play a song on the piano at different tempos, or catch a ball thrown at different speeds, requires that the underlying patterns of neural activity unfold at different speeds [12][13][14][15]. Indeed, some tasks in animal studies explicitly require animals to exhibit temporal scaling: depending on context cues or training blocks animals must temporally scale their motor response [14,[16][17][18].…”

The orbitofrontal cortex in temporal cognition.

“…The ability to tell time, and the underlying neural underpinnings, are often studied in the context of explicit and implicit timing tasks (Ameqrane et al, 2014; Coull & Nobre, 2008; Nobre et al, 2007). Explicit timing (Figure 1a) refers to tasks in which timing is explicitly required for completion of a task, such as discriminating auditory tones of an 800 ms versus a 1,000 ms stimulus, generating differentially delayed motor responses in response to two different sensory cues, or producing intricate temporal motor patterns (Slayton et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2018; Wright et al, 1997). Implicit timing tasks (Figure 1b) refer to those for which in principle it is not necessary to track time to perform the task but rather learning the temporal structure of the task can improve performance (Coull & Nobre, 2008; Nobre & van Ede, 2018).…”