Testing the stability of ‘Default’ motor and auditory-perceptual rhythms–A replication failure dataset

Abstract

Several studies have found that the motor rhythms that individuals produce spontaneously, for example during finger tapping, clapping or walking, are also rated perceptually as ‘very comfortable’ to listen to. This motivated proposal of the Preferred Period Hypothesis , suggesting that individuals have a characteristic preferred rhythm, that generalizes across perception and production. However, some of the experimental procedures used previously raise two methodological concerns: First , in many of these studies, the rhythms used for assessment of participants’ Perceptual Preferred Tempo (PPT) were tailored specifically around each participant's personal Spontaneous Motor Tempo (SMT). This may have biased results toward the central rhythm used, artificially increasing the similarity between spontaneous motor and auditory perceptual preferences. Second , a key prediction of the Preferred Period Hypothesis is that the same default rhythms are repeatedly found within-subject. However, measures of consistency are seldom reported, and increased within-subject variability has sometimes been used to exclude participants. The current study was an attempt to replicate reports of a correspondence between motor and perceptual rhythms, and closely followed previous experimental protocols by conducting three tasks: SMT was evaluated by instructing participants to tap ‘at their most comfortable rate’; PPT was assessed by asking participants to rate a 10 different rhythms according to how ‘comfortable’ they were; and motor-replication of rhythms was assessed using a Synchronization-Continuation task, over a wide range of rhythms. However, in contrast to previous studies, for all participants we use the same 10 perceptual rhythms in both the PPT and Synchronization-Continuation task, irrespective of their SMT. Moreover, we assessed and report measures of within- and between-trial consistency, in order to evaluate whether participants gave similar rating and produced similar motor rhythms across multiple sessions throughout the experiment. The data presented here fail to show any correlation between motor and perceptual preferences, nor do they support improved synchronization-continuation performance near an individual's so-called SMT or PPT. Rather, they demonstrate substantial within-subject variability in the spontaneous motor rhythms produced across repeated sessions, as well as their subjective rating of perceived rhythms. This report accompanies our article “Spontaneous and Stimulus-Driven Rhythmic Behaviors in ADHD Adults and Controls” [1] , and provided motivation and insight for modifying the procedures used for SMT and PPT evaluation, and their interpretation.

Memory-paced tapping to auditory rhythms: Effects of rate, speech and motor-engagement

“…These measures capture complementary aspects of tapping accuracy, as described in our previous work (Kliger Amrani and Zion Golumbic 2020b, 2020a) (Figure 2).…”

“…Previous studies have found that there is a relatively narrow range of rates for which memory-paced tapping is optimal, roughly around ~ 0.6 sec SOA (1.6 Hz). This range corresponds to the rates of spontaneous motor rhythms and perceptual auditory preferences (McAuley et al 2006; McAuley 2010; Roerdink et al 2011; Large and Gray 2015a; Scheurich et al 2018; Zamm et al 2018; Kliger Amrani and Zion Golumbic 2020b, 2020a), leading to the suggestion that they reflect physiological rhythmic-defaults of the auditory and/or motor systems. Given these presumed built-in default rhythmic preferences, here we further tested whether the potential effect of motor engagement manifests similarly across a broad range of rates (from sub-second to supra-second) or whether it interacts with presumed default rhythmic preferences.…”

“…However, it provides a well-controlled framework for assessing whether individuals can synchronize to- and form robust internal representations for speech-derived rhythms, as they can for simple isochronous rhythms. Moreover, given the above-mentioned default rhythmic-preferences observed for spontaneous motor rhythms and isochronous tones (Roerdink et al 2011; Large and Gray 2015a; Scheurich et al 2018; Zamm et al 2018; Kliger Amrani and Zion Golumbic 2020b, 2020a), this setup allows us to assess whether these defaults are present for speech-derived rhythms as well (Assaneo et al 2021). If we find that synchronization and memory-paced tapping to simple and speech-derived rhythms share similar optimal rates, this would support the existence of a common rhythmic mechanism, such as default neural oscillations, underlying a variety of ecologically-relevant rhythmic behaviors.…”

Motor and Perceptual Tests of the Preferred Period Hypothesis: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Recent studies have proposed methodological re nements in the measurement of SMT and PPT, leading to a more cautious and conservative interpretation of a preferred period 15,16 . Firstly, when the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of isochronous sequences presented during PPT measurement are not selected by a participant SMT, no correlation between motor and perceptual rhythmic preferences emerges 15 . According to these researchers, selecting ISI of isochronous sequences in a PPT task based on participants' SMT might introduce a bias toward the central rhythm used.…”

Characterizing endogenous delta oscillations in human MEG

“…To avoid the above-described confound between endogenously periodic signals and the passive tracking of exogenous periodicities in sensory inputs, we additionally analysed MEG signals recorded while participants engaged in spontaneous overt or covert rhythmic behaviours. The frequency of such behaviours has been argued to reflect a stable internal prior (Jacoby & McDermott, 2017; but see Kliger Amrani & Zion Golumbic, 2020; McPherson et al, 2018; Peper et al, 1995; Zalta et al, 2020).…”