Processing speed modulation in rhythmic entrainment paradigms

摘要

Rhythm has often been demonstrated to facilitate both motor performance and perceptual processing within the auditory domain. Miller, Carlson, and McAuley (2013) represents one of the few examples of facilitated report accuracy of visual stimuli presented in synchrony with an entrained rhythm. In a series of studies, we investigated the effect of temporal expectancy on visual perception, induced by an auditory rhythmic entrainment paradigm ad modum Miller et al. To obtain estimates of perceptual performance unconfounded by motor components, we employed non-speeded accuracy-based measures. In the first experiment, participants were presented with a series of seven rhythmic tones, before being shown a single visual stimulus in, or out of synch with the entraining rhythm. Exposure durations of the stimuli were systematically varied and estimates of perceptual processing speed and the threshold for conscious perception were derived using computational modelling based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention (TVA; 1990). Contrary to Miller et al. our findings indicated lower processing speeds only for stimuli presented earlier than expected. This indicates a ramping up of expectancy caused by a failure to control for foreperiod effects and supports findings by Vangkilde, Petersen, and Bundesen (2014), who showed that the speed at which visual stimuli were processed increased with temporal expectation. However, further studies in which we controlled for expectancy by varying the length of the entraining period, also did not show an accuracy benefit for visual stimuli presented in synch with an entraining rhythm. Our findings and the robust non-replication are discussed in relation to the existing rhythmic expectancy literature.