Abstract
Researchers have puzzled over the phenomenon in sensorimotor timing that people tend to tap ahead of time. When synchronizing movements (e.g., finger taps) with an external sequence (e.g., a metronome), humans typically tap tens of milliseconds before event onsets, producing the elusive negative asynchrony. Here, we present 24 metronome-tapping data sets from 8 experiments with different experimental settings, showing that less negative asynchrony is associated with lower tapping variability. Further analyses reveal that this negative mean–SD correlation of asynchrony is likely to be observed for sequence types appropriate for synchronization, as indicated by the statistically negative lag 1 autocorrelation of inter-response intervals. The reported findings indicate an association between negative asynchrony and timing variability.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Liying Zhan, Xiaolin Mei, and Jiehui Qian for their help in preparing the revision, and Jacob Dufault for his help in improving the language.
Funding
This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 31371129), Research Project of Sun Yat-Sen University (Grant number 26000-31620003), and the Philosophical and Social Science Project of Guangdong Province (Grant number GD12YXL02).
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WX conceived the research; YJK, OYFY, HL, and WX designed the research; YJK, HYY, GLY, ZL, CHZ, WMY, and HMX collected experimental data; YJK analyzed experimental data; ZS, YB, and PJH were involved in the discussion of data; YJK, OYFY, HL, and WX wrote the manuscript. All authors commented on and edited the manuscript.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Yang, J., Ouyang, F., Holm, L. et al. Tapping ahead of time: its association with timing variability. Psychological Research 84, 343–351 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1043-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1043-2