Abstract
Timing is fundamental to complex motor behaviors: from tying a knot to playing the piano. A general feature of motor timing is temporal scaling: the ability to produce motor patterns at different speeds. One theory of temporal processing proposes that the brain encodes time in dynamic patterns of neural activity (population clocks), here we first examine whether recurrent neural network (RNN) models can account for temporal scaling. Appropriately trained RNNs exhibit temporal scaling over a range similar to that of humans and capture a signature of motor timing, Weber’s law, but predict that temporal precision improves at faster speeds. Human psychophysics experiments confirm this prediction: the variability of responses in absolute time are lower at faster speeds. These results establish that RNNs can account for temporal scaling and suggest a novel psychophysical principle: the Weber-Speed effect.
Highlights
Timing is fundamental to complex motor behaviors: from tying a knot to playing the piano
A psychophysical study in which humans produce a complex pattern of taps confirms this prediction: precision is better at the same absolute time when a motor pattern is being produced at a higher speeds
We first addressed whether temporal scaling is an intrinsic property of motor timing by training subjects on a temporal pattern reproduction task (Methods)
Summary
Timing is fundamental to complex motor behaviors: from tying a knot to playing the piano. Trained RNNs exhibit temporal scaling over a range similar to that of humans and capture a signature of motor timing, Weber’s law, but predict that temporal precision improves at faster speeds. Human psychophysics experiments confirm this prediction: the variability of responses in absolute time are lower at faster speeds These results establish that RNNs can account for temporal scaling and suggest a novel psychophysical principle: the WeberSpeed effect. Distinct brain areas are implicated in sensory[1,2] and motor[3,4,5,6] timing tasks on the scale of hundreds of milliseconds to a few seconds This multiple clock strategy likely evolved because different tasks have distinct computational requirements. A psychophysical study in which humans produce a complex pattern of taps confirms this prediction: precision is better at the same absolute time when a motor pattern is being produced at a higher speeds
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