Learning of timing patterns and the development of temporal expectations

Abstract

The present study investigated the learning of a culturally unfamiliar musical rhythm, leading to the development of temporal expectations, and it explored the potential for generalization across tempi and tasks. With that aim, we adapted the serial reaction time task to examine the learning of temporal structures by an indirect method. The temporal pattern employed was based on a complex interval ratio (2:3) and compared to one based on a simple interval ratio (1:2). In the exposure phase, non-musician participants performed a two-choice speeded discrimination task that required responding by key press to each event of the simple or complex auditory pattern. Participants were not informed about the temporal regularities; their task solely concerned the discrimination task. During exposure (Experiments 1-3), response times decreased over time for both temporal patterns, but particularly for the events following the longer interval of the more complex 2:3 pattern. Exposure further influenced performance in subsequent testing phases, notably the precision of tap timing in a production task (Experiment 2) and temporal expectations in a perception task (Experiment 3). Our findings promote the new paradigm introduced here as a method to investigate the learning of temporal structures.

Thresholds of Auditory-Motor Coupling Measured with a Simple Task in Musicians and Non-Musicians: Was the Sound Simultaneous to the Key Press?

“…That is, we measured how well they could synchronise their movements to an external stimulus [33], [34]. For this, we used a variation of the synchronisation-continuation tapping paradigm [35], [36]. All tasks were performed by non-musicians and by pianist and brass player musicians.…”

Implicit learning of between-group intervals in auditory temporal structures

“…Earlier research, failing to find independent learning of temporal structure, instead required identification of the events presented according to the temporal structure (Buchner & Steffens, 2001;Shin & Ivry, 2002). Two studies have shown that implicit learning can occur in an identification task, but, in both instances, the temporal structures were based on a sequence of IOIs and were strongly metrical (Brandon et al, 2012;Tillmann et al, 2011; see also Schultz et al, 2013, for a discussion on identification vs. detection in auditory SRTTs). The events were syllables (e.g., BPa^, BTa^) presented according to either a simple (Tillmann et al, 2011) or complex (Brandon et al, 2012) repeating sequence of IOIs.…”

“…However, a small number of studies using an auditory adaptation of the SRTT have demonstrated learning of temporal structure without a correlated event structure (e.g., Brandon, Terry, Stevens, & Tillmann, 2012;Schultz, Stevens, Keller, & Tillmann, 2013;Salidis, 2001, Tillmann et al, 2011. For instance, Salidis (2001) required participants to press a key every time they heard a tone.…”

“…Two studies have shown that implicit learning can occur in an identification task, but, in both instances, the temporal structures were based on a sequence of IOIs and were strongly metrical (Brandon et al, 2012;Tillmann et al, 2011; see also Schultz et al, 2013, for a discussion on identification vs. detection in auditory SRTTs). The events were syllables (e.g., BPa^, BTa^) presented according to either a simple (Tillmann et al, 2011) or complex (Brandon et al, 2012) repeating sequence of IOIs. Importantly, the syllable orders were pseudorandom and uncorrelated with the temporal structures.…”

“…Previous findings have led to the hypothesis that implicit learning may be a powerful means through which listeners learn temporal structure and develop temporal expectations (Salidis, 2001;Tillmann, Stevens, & Keller, 2011). To test the strength of implicit learning, we investigated the abstraction and learning of between-group IOIs within complex temporal structures that are weakly metrical.…”