Practice effects on the coordination of the two hands in a bimanual tapping task

Abstract

This paper examines changes in the coordination of the two hands that occur as a function of practice in a polyrhythmic tapping task. Two musicians and two nonmusicians practiced a 3:5 polyrhythm for eight sessions held on consecutive days. There was no evidence of the development of independence between the hands with practice. Rather all subjects attempted to interleave the timing of the two hands. Three of the subjects adopted a hierarchical integrated motor organisation in which movements of the slow hand were subordinate to movements of the fast hand. The remaining subject, a nonmusician, used the slow hand beats as the time base for integrating the two hands. The role of cognitive factors in overriding lower level oscillatory mechanisms is discussed.