Temporal control mechanism of repetitive tapping with simple rhythmic patterns

Abstract

In previous studies, it was shown that the temporal control in equal-interval tapping is governed by a memory mechanism, which preserves the information of the preceding 20 intervals to determine the interval of the present tap. In the first stage of the present study, an equal-interval tapping experiment was carried out. The results of the experiment confirmed that the 20-interval memory mechanism governs the temporal control of single-finger equal-interval tapping for various tempi. In the following stages of the present study, simple rhythmic patterns were constructed with long and short time values with a 2 : 1 ratio. The temporal fluctuation in repetitive tapping of these rhythmic patterns was analyzed using Fourier analysis and autoregressive models. The results showed that the 20-interval memory mechanism also governs the temporal control of the tapping for the simple rhythmic patterns: In the case of a rapid tempo, the 20-interval memory mechanism is active for the long time value, whereas in the case of a slow tempo, it is active for the short time value. The point at which the memory mechanism switches between the long and short time values is located around a tempo in which the short time value corresponds to 350 ms.