Abstract
It has been hypothesized that internal oscillations can synchronize (i.e., entrain) to external environmental rhythms, thereby facilitating perception and behaviour. To date, evidence for the link between the phase of neural oscillations and behaviour has been scarce and contradictory; moreover, it remains an open question whether the brain can use this tentative mechanism for active temporal prediction. In our present study, we conducted a series of auditory pitch discrimination tasks with 181 healthy participants in an effort to shed light on the proposed behavioural benefits of rhythmic cueing and entrainment. In the three versions of our task, we observed no perceptual benefit of purported entrainment: targets occurring in‐phase with a rhythmic cue provided no perceptual benefits in terms of discrimination accuracy or reaction time when compared with targets occurring out‐of‐phase or targets occurring randomly, nor did we find performance differences for targets preceded by rhythmic versus random cues. However, we found a surprising effect of cueing frequency on reaction time, in which participants showed faster responses to cue rhythms presented at higher frequencies. We therefore provide no evidence of entrainment, but instead a tentative effect of covert active sensing in which a faster external rhythm leads to a faster communication rate between motor and sensory cortices, allowing for sensory inputs to be sampled earlier in time.
Highlights
When presented with rhythmic input we tend to produce rhythmic behavior
In a series of three experiments, we found no behavioral benefit of rhythmic cueing, compared to random cueing, neither on a within-subjects level nor on a between-subjects level
We found no behavioral benefit for targets occurring in-phase with rhythmic cues, compared to those occurring outof-phase
Summary
Think of clapping to a drumbeat and being able to continue clapping to the beat after the drum stops. Such rhythmic behavior, driven by temporal expectations, could be subserved by rhythmic brain activity (i.e., neural oscillations), a prominent feature of brain dynamics. Driven by temporal expectations, could be subserved by rhythmic brain activity (i.e., neural oscillations), a prominent feature of brain dynamics In this view, internal neural oscillations that synchronize (entrain) to external environmental rhythms reflect temporal predictions, thereby facilitating perception and behavior (Lakatos et al, 2008). While there is some evidence that the phase of ongoing oscillations at the time of sensory stimulation impacts the neural response to that stimulus, as well as subsequent behavioral performance (e.g. Busch et al, 2009; Mathewson et al, 2009; Ten Oever & Sack, 2019; for a review see VanRullen, 2016), this evidence is far from conclusive as several studies have reported null results (e.g. Benwell et al, 2017; O’Hare, 1954; Ruzzoli et al, 2019; Vigué-Guix et al, 2020; Walsh, 1952)
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