Abstract
Predicting the timing of upcoming events enables efficient resource allocation and action preparation. Rhythmic streams, such as music, speech, and biological motion, constitute a pervasive source for temporal predictions. Widely accepted entrainment theories postulate that rhythm-based predictions are mediated by synchronizing low-frequency neural oscillations to the rhythm, as indicated by increased phase concentration (PC) of low-frequency neural activity for rhythmic compared to random streams. However, we show here that PC enhancement in scalp recordings is not specific to rhythms but is observed to the same extent in less periodic streams if they enable memory-based prediction. This is inconsistent with the predictions of a computational entrainment model of stronger PC for rhythmic streams. Anticipatory change in alpha activity and facilitation of electroencephalogram (EEG) manifestations of response selection are also comparable between rhythm- and memory-based predictions. However, rhythmic sequences uniquely result in obligatory depression of preparation-related premotor brain activity when an on-beat event is omitted, even when it is strategically beneficial to maintain preparation, leading to larger behavioral costs for violation of prediction. Thus, while our findings undermine the validity of PC as a sign of rhythmic entrainment, they constitute the first electrophysiological dissociation, to our knowledge, between mechanisms of rhythmic predictions and of memory-based predictions: the former obligatorily lead to resonance-like preparation patterns (that are in line with entrainment), while the latter allow flexible resource allocation in time regardless of periodicity in the input. Taken together, they delineate the neural mechanisms of three distinct modes of preparation: continuous vigilance, interval-timing-based prediction and rhythm-based prediction.
Highlights
Information processing is optimized by predicting the location or identity of upcoming events and their timing and allocating resources [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We tested whether rhythm-based predictions have unique expressions in behavior and brain activity—as measured by electroencephalogram (EEG)—by comparing rhythmic streams to less rhythmic streams that enable prediction based on memorizing repeating intervals
We show that phase concentration (PC) of neural oscillations—a neural pattern commonly associated with entrainment—occurs to a similar extent in both predictive rhythmic and less rhythmic streams
Summary
Information processing is optimized by predicting the location or identity of upcoming events and their timing and allocating resources [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Understanding the mechanisms of temporal prediction is central for models of cognitive and neural processing. We tease apart the neural manifestations of oscillatory entrainment from rhythm-independent mechanisms of temporal predictions. This is done by comparing temporal prediction based on rhythms to predictions based on memory, a critical comparison that was so far missing
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