Abstract
Rhythmic entrainment—defined as a stable temporal relationship between external periodic signals and endogenous rhythmic processes—allows individuals to coordinate with environmental rhythms. However, the impact of inter-individual differences on entrainment processes as a function of the tempo of external periodic signals remain poorly understood. To better understand the effects of endogenous differences and varying tempos on rhythmic entrainment, 20 young healthy adults participated in a spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) task and synchronization-continuation tasks at three experimental tempos (50, 70, and 128 bpm; 1200, 857, and 469 ms inter onset interval (IOI)). We hypothesized that SMT task performance and tempo would influence externally paced synchronization-continuation task behavior. Indeed, intrinsic rhythmicity assessed through the SMT task predicted performance in the externally paced task, allowing us to characterize differences in entrainment behavior between participants with low and high endogenous rhythmicity. High rhythmicity individuals, defined by better SMT performance, deviated from externally paced pulses sooner than individuals with low rhythmicity, who were able to maintain externally paced pulses for longer. The magnitude of these behavioral differences depended on the experimental tempo of the synchronization-continuation task. Our results indicate that differences in intrinsic rhythmicity vary between individuals and relate to tempo-dependent entrainment performance.
Highlights
Rhythmicity has proven to be a salient aspect of music therapy, with clinicians using rhythmic interventions to assist in motor rehabilitation, and to improve mobility for patients with Parkinson’s Disease and cerebral palsy[1,2,3,4,5]
We propose that individual differences in intrinsic rhythmicity can be seen in the temporal consistency of spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) pulses, and that differences in intrinsic rhythmicity will be reflected in synchronization-continuation task entrainment
SMT Phase locking value (PLV) ranged from 0.0637–0.5261, and PLV in the 50 bpm, 70 bpm, and 128 bpm conditions ranged from 0.0636–0.4236, 0.0692–0.4596, and 0.0648–0.3527, respectively
Summary
Rhythmicity has proven to be a salient aspect of music therapy, with clinicians using rhythmic interventions to assist in motor rehabilitation, and to improve mobility for patients with Parkinson’s Disease and cerebral palsy[1,2,3,4,5]. Based on a finger tapping paradigm[21,22], and the variability in the inter-onset-interval (IOI) of taps and asynchrony between auditory stimuli and taps are typically used to assess behavioral performance in SMS tasks In these tasks, the pulse is the isochronous rhythm that participants entrain with and produce, and the tempo is the frequency of the stimulus and produced rhythm. Drumming engages the skeleto-muscular system in more comprehensive ways than finger tapping tasks and employs a range of motion that individuals regularly employ on a daily basis, making it more representative of holistic entrainment abilities[33,34,35] This task engages sensorimotor entrainment that would occur in a music therapy context, making it crucial for assessing ecologically valid measurements of entrainment and potential translational therapeutic applications of our research
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