Beat Synchronization Research Articles

The Difference Between Expert Dancers' and Non-Dancers Tapping Timing With and Without an Auditory Stimulus at a Slow Tempo.

Our primary purpose in this study was to determine whether trained dancers differed from untrained non-dancers in their ability to accurately control motor timing during finger and heel tapping tasks, both with and without slow isochronous auditory stimuli. Dancers and non-dancers were instructed to synchronize their taps with isochronous auditory stimuli under three conditions: 30, 40, and 50BPM. After the synchronization phase, participants were asked to continue tapping without the auditory sequences. On the synchronization task, the tapping onset of both groups lagged behind the stimulus onset in all tempo conditions. In all conditions, dancers showed more accurate and stable beat synchronization and continuation than non-dancers. As the tempo condition slowed down (from 50 to 30BPM), synchronization accuracy decreased while synchronization and continuation variability increased. Unlike for novices, dancers showed no difference between the finger and heel tapping synchronization tasks. During the continuous tasks, their timing accuracy was higher for heel than for finger tapping. Collectively, these findings suggest that dance training, which involves synchronizing bodily movements based on rhythm, may lead to an accumulation of experience that enhances specific sensorimotor skills related to synchronizing movements with external stimuli or continuing rhythmic movements temporally.

Sensorimotor Impairment in Aging and Neurocognitive Disorders: Beat Synchronization and Adaptation to Tempo Changes.

Understanding the nature and extent of sensorimotor decline in aging individuals and those with neurocognitive disorders (NCD), such as Alzheimer's disease, is essential for designing effective music-based interventions. Our understanding of rhythmic functions remains incomplete, particularly in how aging and NCD affect sensorimotor synchronization and adaptation to tempo changes. This study aimed to investigate how aging and NCD severity impact tapping to metronomes and music, with and without tempo changes. Patients from a memory clinic participated in a tapping task, synchronizing with metronomic and musical sequences, some of which contained sudden tempo changes. After exclusions, 51 patients were included in the final analysis. Participants' Mini-Mental State Examination scores were associated with tapping consistency. Additionally, age negatively influenced consistency when synchronizing with a musical beat, whereas consistency remained stable across age when tapping with a metronome. The results indicate that the initial decline of attention and working memory with age may impact perception and synchronization to a musical beat, whereas progressive NCD-related cognitive decline results in more widespread sensorimotor decline, affecting tapping irrespective of audio type. These findings underline the importance of customizing rhythm-based interventions to the needs of older adults and individuals with NCD, taking into consideration their cognitive as well as their rhythmic aptitudes.

Moving stimuli enhance beat timing and sensorimotor coupling in vision.

Vision has long been known for its inefficiency in beat perception and synchronization. However, this has been challenged by the finding that moving stimuli (bouncing ball or moving bar) can significantly improve visual beat synchronization. The present study examined two possible mechanisms for this phenomenon: visual motion facilitates temporal processing or promotes sensorimotor coupling. Instead of a single visual object (such as a ball or bar), random-dot kinematograms (RDKs) were used to construct visual motion sequences to avoid confounding factors, such as changes in trajectory and velocity. Experiment 1 showed that RDKs improved beat-timing discrimination compared with visual flashes, but auditory tones were still superior to RDKs. In Experiment 2, synchronized movements improved auditory-tone beat timing but impaired visual-flash beat timing, with no effect on RDK beat timing. Experiment 3 indicated that the regression slope of the phase correction response in RDKs was higher than that in visual flashes but still lower than that in auditory tones. The results showed that moving stimuli enhances both temporal processing (Experiment 1) and sensorimotor coupling (Experiments 2 and 3) in vision, but to a lesser degree, with audition retaining an advantage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the genetics of rhythmic perception and musical engagement in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study.

Uncovering the genetic underpinnings of musical ability and engagement is a foundational step for exploring their wide-ranging associations with cognition, health, and neurodevelopment. Prior studies have focused on using twin and family designs, demonstrating moderate heritability of musical phenotypes. The current study used genome-wide complex trait analysis and polygenic score (PGS) approaches utilizing genotype data to examine genetic influences on two musicality traits (rhythmic perception and music engagement) in N = 1792 unrelated adults in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study. Meta-analyzed heritability estimates (including a replication sample of Swedish individuals) were 31% for rhythmic perception and 12% for self-reported music engagement. A PGS derived from a recent study on beat synchronization ability predicted both rhythmic perception (β = 0.11) and music engagement (β = 0.19) in our sample, suggesting that genetic influences underlying self-reported beat synchronization ability also influence individuals' rhythmic discrimination aptitude and the degree to which they engage in music. Cross-trait analyses revealed a modest contribution of PGSs from several nonmusical traits (from the cognitive, personality, and circadian chronotype domains) to individual differences in musicality (β = -0.06 to 0.07). This work sheds light on the complex relationship between the genetic architecture of musical rhythm processing, beat synchronization, music engagement, and other nonmusical traits.

Identifying the risk of dyslexia in bilingual children: The potential of language-dependent and language-independent tasks.

This study investigates the linguistic processing and non-linguistic cognitive abilities of monolingual and bilingual children with and without reading difficulties and examines the relationship between these skills and reading. There were 72 Italian-speaking children: 18 monolingual good readers (MONO-GR, Mage = 10;4), 19 monolingual poor readers (MONO-PR, Mage = 10;3), 21 bilingual good readers (BI-GR, Mage = 10;6), and 16 bilingual poor readers (BI-PR, Mage = 10;6). All bilingual children spoke Italian as their L2. Children completed a battery of standardized Italian reading tests, language-dependent tasks: nonword repetition (NWR), sentence repetition (SR), and phonological awareness (PA), and language-independent tasks: timing anticipation, beat synchronization, inhibition control, auditory reaction time, and rapid automatized naming (RAN). Poor readers scored below good readers on the language-dependent tasks, including NWR, PA, and SR. Beat synchronization was the only language-independent task sensitive to reading ability, with poor readers showing greater variability than good readers in tapping to fast rhythms. SR was the only task influenced by language experience as bilinguals underperformed monolinguals on the task. Moreover, there were weak to moderate correlations between performance on some language-dependent tasks (NWR, PA), language-independent tasks (inhibition control, RAN), and reading measures. Performance on the experimental tasks (except for RAN) was not associated with the length of exposure to Italian. The results highlight the potential of NWR, PA, SR, and beat synchronization tasks in identifying the risk of dyslexia in bilingual populations. Future research is needed to validate these findings and to establish the tasks' diagnostic accuracy.

Spontaneous beat synchronization in rats: Neural dynamics and motor entrainment.

Beat perception and synchronization within 120 to 140 beats/min (BPM) are common in humans and frequently used in music composition. Why beat synchronization is uncommon in some species and the mechanism determining the optimal tempo are unclear. Here, we examined physical movements and neural activities in rats to determine their beat sensitivity. Close inspection of head movements and neural recordings revealed that rats displayed prominent beat synchronization and activities in the auditory cortex within 120 to 140 BPM. Mathematical modeling suggests that short-term adaptation underlies this beat tuning. Our results support the hypothesis that the optimal tempo for beat synchronization is determined by the time constant of neural dynamics conserved across species, rather than the species-specific time constant of physical movements. Thus, latent neural propensity for auditory motor entrainment may provide a basis for human entrainment that is much more widespread than currently thought. Further studies comparing humans and animals will offer insights into the origins of music and dancing.

Using a polygenic score in a family design to understand genetic influences on musicality

To further our understanding of the genetics of musicality, we explored associations between a polygenic score for self-reported beat synchronization ability (PGSrhythm) and objectively measured rhythm discrimination, as well as other validated music skills and music-related traits. Using family data, we were able to further explore potential pathways of direct genetic, indirect genetic (through passive gene–environment correlation) and confounding effects (such as population structure and assortative mating). In 5648 Swedish twins, we found PGSrhythm to predict not only rhythm discrimination, but also melody and pitch discrimination (betas between 0.11 and 0.16, p < 0.001), as well as other music-related outcomes (p < 0.05). In contrast, PGSrhythm was not associated with control phenotypes not directly related to music. Associations did not deteriorate within families (N = 243), implying that indirect genetic or confounding effects did not inflate PGSrhythm effects. A correlation (r = 0.05, p < 0.001) between musical enrichment of the family childhood environment and individuals' PGSrhythm, suggests gene–environment correlation. We conclude that the PGSrhythm captures individuals' general genetic musical propensity, affecting musical behavior more likely direct than through indirect or confounding effects.

Beat Synchronization and Reading: The Feasibility of Music and Video Game Trainings

Abstract The prevalence of reading disabilities ranges from 5% to 12%, making it important to support reading programs. More specifically, children with reading disabilities show difficulties in beat synchronization that requires fine audio-motor synchrony. This synchrony, which demonstrates temporal processing skills, is linked to reading development. The purpose of the present study was to establish the feasibility of 2 music training programs for reading through practicing beat synchronization and to explore the preliminary efficacy of these programs for third graders identified as having reading challenges. Two participants attended the rhythmic music exercise group where they performed musical tasks set to a metronome beat. Two other participants attended the video game playing group where they played Donkey Konga. Each group attended a 30-minute session twice a week for 4 weeks. The Gray Oral Reading Test Fifth Edition (GORT-5) was used to assess reading ability. Selected subtests from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Awareness Second Edition (CTOPP-2) were used to assess phonological processing. Feasibility data indicated that both programs were successfully implemented and well received by the participants. While preliminary-efficacy analysis demonstrated positive trends in the reading and phonological awareness tests for the rhythmic music exercise group and mixed results for the video game playing group, a large, controlled pilot study is needed to determine the effects of these training programs. Music therapists may potentially apply the proposed rhythmic music exercises to address reading-related goals.

Genome-wide association study of musical beat synchronization demonstrates high polygenicity

Moving in synchrony to the beat is a fundamental component of musicality. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study to identify common genetic variants associated with beat synchronization in 606,825 individuals. Beat synchronization exhibited a highly polygenic architecture, with 69 loci reaching genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8) and single-nucleotide-polymorphism-based heritability (on the liability scale) of 13%–16%. Heritability was enriched for genes expressed in brain tissues and for fetal and adult brain-specific gene regulatory elements, underscoring the role of central-nervous-system-expressed genes linked to the genetic basis of the trait. We performed validations of the self-report phenotype (through separate experiments) and of the genome-wide association study (polygenic scores for beat synchronization were associated with patients algorithmically classified as musicians in medical records of a separate biobank). Genetic correlations with breathing function, motor function, processing speed and chronotype suggest shared genetic architecture with beat synchronization and provide avenues for new phenotypic and genetic explorations.

Test of Prosody via Syllable Emphasis ("TOPsy"): Psychometric Validation of a Brief Scalable Test of Lexical Stress Perception.

Prosody perception is fundamental to spoken language communication as it supports comprehension, pragmatics, morphosyntactic parsing of speech streams, and phonological awareness. A particular aspect of prosody: perceptual sensitivity to speech rhythm patterns in words (i.e., lexical stress sensitivity), is also a robust predictor of reading skills, though it has received much less attention than phonological awareness in the literature. Given the importance of prosody and reading in educational outcomes, reliable and valid tools are needed to conduct large-scale health and genetic investigations of individual differences in prosody, as groundwork for investigating the biological underpinnings of the relationship between prosody and reading. Motivated by this need, we present the Test of Prosody via Syllable Emphasis (“TOPsy”) and highlight its merits as a phenotyping tool to measure lexical stress sensitivity in as little as 10 min, in scalable internet-based cohorts. In this 28-item speech rhythm perception test [modeled after the stress identification test from Wade-Woolley (2016)], participants listen to multi-syllabic spoken words and are asked to identify lexical stress patterns. Psychometric analyses in a large internet-based sample shows excellent reliability, and predictive validity for self-reported difficulties with speech-language, reading, and musical beat synchronization. Further, items loaded onto two distinct factors corresponding to initially stressed vs. non-initially stressed words. These results are consistent with previous reports that speech rhythm perception abilities correlate with musical rhythm sensitivity and speech-language/reading skills, and are implicated in reading disorders (e.g., dyslexia). We conclude that TOPsy can serve as a useful tool for studying prosodic perception at large scales in a variety of different settings, and importantly can act as a validated brief phenotype for future investigations of the genetic architecture of prosodic perception, and its relationship to educational outcomes.

Beat Perception and Production in Musicians and Dancers

The ability to perceive and produce a beat is believed to be universal in humans, but individual ability varies. The current study examined four factors that may influence beat perception and production capacity: 1) expertise: music or dance, 2) training style: percussive or nonpercussive, 3) stimulus modality: auditory or visual, and 4) movement type: finger-tap or whole-body bounce. Experiment 1 examined how expertise and training style influenced beat perception and production performance using an auditory beat perception task and a finger-tapping beat production task. Experiment 2 used a similar sample with an audiovisual variant of the beat perception task, and a standing knee-bend (bounce) beat production task to assess whole-body movement. The data showed that: 1) musicians were more accurate in a finger-tapping beat synchronization task compared to dancers and controls, 2) training style did not significantly influence beat perception and production, 3) visual beat information did not benefit any group, and 4) beat synchronization in a full-body movement task was comparable for musicians and dancers; both groups outperformed controls. The current study suggests that the type of task and measured response interacts with expertise, and that expertise effects may be masked by selection of nonoptimal response types.

Linking the genomic signatures of human beat synchronization and learned song in birds

The development of rhythmicity is foundational to communicative and social behaviours in humans and many other species, and mechanisms of synchrony could be conserved across species. The goal of the current paper is to explore evolutionary hypotheses linking vocal learning and beat synchronization through genomic approaches, testing the prediction that genetic underpinnings of birdsong also contribute to the aetiology of human interactions with musical beat structure. We combined state-of-the-art-genomic datasets that account for underlying polygenicity of these traits: birdsong genome-wide transcriptomics linked to singing in zebra finches, and a human genome-wide association study of beat synchronization. Results of competitive gene set analysis revealed that the genetic architecture of human beat synchronization is significantly enriched for birdsong genes expressed in songbird Area X (a key nucleus for vocal learning, and homologous to human basal ganglia). These findings complement ethological and neural evidence of the relationship between vocal learning and beat synchronization, supporting a framework of some degree of common genomic substrates underlying rhythm-related behaviours in two clades, humans and songbirds (the largest evolutionary radiation of vocal learners). Future cross-species approaches investigating the genetic underpinnings of beat synchronization in a broad evolutionary context are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.

Rhythm, reading, and sound processing in the brain in preschool children

A child’s success in school relies on their ability to quickly grasp language and reading skills, the foundations of which are acquired even before entering a formal classroom setting. Previous studies in preschoolers have begun to establish relationships linking beat synchronization, preliteracy skills, and auditory processing. Beat synchronization involves the integration of sensorimotor systems with auditory and cognitive circuits and, therefore calls on many of the same neural networks as language. Using a drumming task, we analyzed the relationship between children’s ability to maintain an isochronous beat with preliteracy skills and frequency following responses (FFRs) in over 150 preschoolers. We show that preschoolers who performed well on the beat synchronization task outscored their peers on all preliteracy measures and had more robust FFRs. Furthermore, the good synchronizers experienced less degradation of certain FFR measures when listening in noise. Together, our results are consistent with the view that rhythm, preliteracy, and auditory processing are interconnected during early childhood.

Tail Beat Synchronization during Schooling Requires a Functional Posterior Lateral Line System in Giant Danios, Devario aequipinnatus.

Swimming in schools has long been hypothesized to allow fish to save energy. Fish must exploit the energy from the wakes of their neighbors for maximum energy savings, a feat that requires them to both synchronize their tail movements and stay in certain positions relative to their neighbors. To maintain position in a school, we know that fish use multiple sensory systems, mainly their visual and flow sensing lateral line system. However, how fish synchronize their swimming movements in a school is still not well understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that this synchronization may depend on functional differences in the two branches of the lateral line sensory system that detects water movements close to the fish's body. The anterior branch, located on the head, encounters largely undisturbed free-stream flow, while the posterior branch, located on the trunk and tail, encounters flow that has been affected strongly by the tail movement. Thus, we hypothesize that the anterior branch may be more important for regulating position within the school, while the posterior branch may be more important for synchronizing tail movements. Our study examines functional differences in the anterior and posterior lateral line in the structure and tail synchronization of fish schools. We used a widely available aquarium fish that schools, the giant danio, Devario equipinnatus. Fish swam in a large circular tank where stereoscopic videos recordings were used to reconstruct the 3D position of each individual within the school and to track tail kinematics to quantify synchronization. For one fish in each school, we ablated using cobalt chloride either the anterior region only, the posterior region only, or the entire lateral line system. We observed that ablating any region of the lateral line system causes fish to swim in a "box" or parallel swimming formation, which was different from the diamond formation observed in normal fish. Ablating only the anterior region did not substantially reduce tail beat synchronization but ablating only the posterior region caused fish to stop synchronizing their tail beats, largely because the tail beat frequency increased dramatically. Thus, the anterior and posterior lateral line system appears to have different behavioral functions in fish. Most importantly, we showed that the posterior lateral line system played a major role in determining tail beat synchrony in schooling fish. Without synchronization, swimming efficiency decreases, which can have an impact on the fitness of the individual fish and group.

Co-occurrence of Deficits in Beat Perception and Synchronization Supports Implication of Motor System in Beat Perception

The main goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that disorders in entrainment to the beat of music originate from motor deficits. To this aim, we adapted the Beat Alignment Test and tested a large pool of control subjects, as well as nine individuals who had previously showed deficits in synchronization to the beat of music. The tasks consisted of tapping (Experiment 1) and bouncing (Experiment 2) in synchrony with the beat of non-classical music that varied in genre, tempo, and groove, and then judging whether a superimposed metronome was perceived as on or off the beat of the same selection of music. Results indicate concomitant deficits in both beat synchronization and the detection of misalignment with the beat, supporting the hypothesis that the motor system is implicated in beat perception.

Mode-locked short pulses from an 8\xa0\u03bcm wavelength semiconductor laser

Quantum cascade lasers (QCL) have revolutionized the generation of mid-infrared light. Yet, the ultrafast carrier transport in mid-infrared QCLs has so far constituted a seemingly insurmountable obstacle for the formation of ultrashort light pulses. Here, we demonstrate that careful quantum design of the gain medium and control over the intermode beat synchronization enable transform-limited picosecond pulses from QCL frequency combs. Both an interferometric radio-frequency technique and second-order autocorrelation shed light on the pulse dynamics and confirm that mode-locked operation is achieved from threshold to rollover current. Furthermore, we show that both anti-phase and in-phase synchronized states exist in QCLs. Being electrically pumped and compact, mode-locked QCLs pave the way towards monolithically integrated non-linear photonics in the molecular fingerprint region beyond 6 μm wavelength.

Evaluation of cardiac beat synchronization control for a rotary blood pump on valvular regurgitation with a mathematical model.

We have studied the cardiac beat synchronization (CBS) control for a rotary blood pump (RBP) and revealed that it can promote pulsatility and reduce cardiac load. Besides, patients with LVAD support sometimes suffer from aortic and mitral regurgitation (AR and MR). A control method for the RBP should be validated in wider range of conditions to clarify its benefits and pitfalls prior to clinical application. In this study, we evaluated pulsatility and cardiac load reduction obtained with the CBS control on valvular failure conditions with a mathematical model. Diastolic assist could reduce cardiac load on the left ventricle by decreasing external work of the ventricle even in MR cases while it was not so effective in AR cases. Systolic assist can still promote pulsatility in AR and MR cases; however, aortic valve function should be carefully confirmed since pulse pressure can be wider not due to systolic assist but to AR.

Synchronization to auditory and visual beats in Parkinson's disease

The ability to move in synchrony with a perceived regular beat in time is essential for humans to interact with environments in an anticipatory manner, and the basal ganglia have been shown to be preferentially involved in beat processing. Auditory beats are often adopted in assessing the sensorimotor deficiency of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is characterized by basal ganglia dysfunction. Whereas beat synchronization has long been considered to be specific to the auditory modality, recent studies employing moving instead of static visual stimuli have shown comparable synchronization performances of auditory and visual beats. Here, we show that compared with control subjects, synchronization stability of PD patients significantly decreased for beats composed of visual contracting rings but not for beats consisting of auditory tones or static visual flashes. The results revealed specific impairment of visual beat synchronization in PD. Considering the common experience of visuomotor interactions in daily lives of PD patients, the present finding emphasizes the importance of evaluation of visuomotor timing deficiency in PD by employing moving visual stimuli that have ecological relevance.

Spatial-Temporal Signals and Clinical Indices in Electrocardiographic Imaging (I): Preprocessing and Bipolar Potentials.

During the last years, Electrocardiographic Imaging (ECGI) has emerged as a powerful and promising clinical tool to support cardiologists. Starting from a plurality of potential measurements on the torso, ECGI yields a noninvasive estimation of their causing potentials on the epicardium. This unprecedented amount of measured cardiac signals needs to be conditioned and adapted to current knowledge and methods in cardiac electrophysiology in order to maximize its support to the clinical practice. In this setting, many cardiac indices are defined in terms of the so-called bipolar electrograms, which correspond with differential potentials between two spatially close potential measurements. Our aim was to contribute to the usefulness of ECGI recordings in the current knowledge and methods of cardiac electrophysiology. For this purpose, we first analyzed the basic stages of conventional cardiac signal processing and scrutinized the implications of the spatial-temporal nature of signals in ECGI scenarios. Specifically, the stages of baseline wander removal, low-pass filtering, and beat segmentation and synchronization were considered. We also aimed to establish a mathematical operator to provide suitable bipolar electrograms from the ECGI-estimated epicardium potentials. Results were obtained on data from an infarction patient and from a healthy subject. First, the low-frequency and high-frequency noises are shown to be non-independently distributed in the ECGI-estimated recordings due to their spatial dimension. Second, bipolar electrograms are better estimated when using the criterion of the maximum-amplitude difference between spatial neighbors, but also a temporal delay in discrete time of about 40 samples has to be included to obtain the usual morphology in clinical bipolar electrograms from catheters. We conclude that spatial-temporal digital signal processing and bipolar electrograms can pave the way towards the usefulness of ECGI recordings in the cardiological clinical practice. The companion paper is devoted to analyzing clinical indices obtained from ECGI epicardial electrograms measuring waveform variability and repolarization tissue properties.

Basic timekeeping deficit in the Beat-based Form of Congenital Amusia

Humans have the capacity to match movements’ timing with the beat of music. Yet some individuals show marked difficulties. The causes of these difficulties remain to be determined. Here, we investigate to what extend a beat synchronization deficit can be traced to basic timekeeping abilities. Eight beat-impaired individuals who were unable to successfully synchronize to the beat of music were compared to matched controls in their ability to tap a self-paced regular beat, to tap to a metronome spanning a large range of tempi (225–1709 ms inter-tone onsets), and to maintain the tempi after the sounds had ceased. Whether paced by a metronome or not, beat-impaired individuals showed poorer regularity (higher variability) in tapping, with an inability to synchronize at a fast tempo (225 ms between beats) or to sustain tapping at slow tempi (above 1 sec). Yet, they showed evidence of predictive and flexible processing. We suggest that the beat impairment is due to imprecise internal timekeeping mechanism.