ABSTRACT Accurate processing of auditory timing information has been proposed as crucial for the development of various complex cognitive abilities, such as literacy. However, empirical validation of this hypothesis has primarily involved using isochronous stimuli, which do not capture the nonlinearity inherent in the perception of timing in speech and music. Additionally, most work has focused on clinical/developmental populations and assessed timing at slower time scales, limiting our knowledge of this relationship. The current study introduces a perturbation stimulus design aimed at overcoming these limitations. We examined the association between reading abilities and behavioral entrainment to perturbation stimuli and applied a novel curve-fitting technique to analyze participants’ entrainment in response to perturbations. We demonstrate that behavioral entrainment during the post-perturbation time window yields superior predictive value across a wide array of reading measurements compared to entrainment to isochronous stimuli (before the perturbation) in a neurotypical adult population. Our perturbation paradigm effectively reveals individual differences in auditory temporal processing among neurotypical adults, offering a novel approach to investigating the link between auditory temporal processing and literacy skills beyond clinical/developmental contexts. Our novel curve-fitting analysis effectively captures the nonlinear aspects of participants’ entrainment when recovering from tempo perturbations.
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