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How do people coordinate their actions with the sounds they hear? This basic ability, which allows people to cross the street safely while hearing oncoming traffic, dance to new music or perform team events such as rowing, has puzzled cognitive neuroscientists for years. A new study led by researchers at 91社区 is shining a light on how auditory perception and motor processes work together.

Listen to the beats the musicians had to copy:

Simple

moderate

complex

Keeping the beat 鈥� it takes more than just moving or listening well

In a recent paper in , the researchers, led by Caroline Palmer, a professor in 91社区鈥檚 Department of Psychology, were able to identify neural markers of musicians鈥� beat perceptions. Surprisingly, these markers did not correspond to the musician鈥檚 ability to either hear or produce a beat 鈥� only to their ability to synchronize with it.

鈥淭he authors, as performing musicians, are familiar with musical situations in which one performer is not correctly aligned in time with fellow performers - so we were interested in exploring how musician鈥檚 brains respond to rhythms. It could be that some people are better musicians because they listen differently or it could be that they move their bodies differently,鈥� explains Palmer, the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance, and the senior author on the paper.

鈥淲e found that the answer was a match between the pulsing or oscillations in the brain rhythms and the pulsing of the musical rhythm 鈥� it鈥檚 not just listening or movement. It鈥檚 a linking of the brain rhythm to the auditory rhythm.鈥�

Super-synchronizers 鈥� an exception or a learnable skill?

The researchers used electroencephalography (EEGs involve placing electrodes on the scalp to detect electrical activity in the brain) to measure brain activity as participants in the experiment, all of them experienced musicians, synchronized their tapping with a range of musical rhythms they were hearing. By doing so they were able to identify neural markers of musicians鈥� beat perceptions that corresponded to their ability to synchronize well.

鈥淲e were surprised that even highly trained musicians sometimes showed reduced ability to synchronize with complex rhythms, and that this was reflected in their EEGs,鈥� said co-first authors Brian Mathias and Anna Zamm, both PhD students in the Palmer lab. 鈥淢ost musicians are good synchronizers; nonetheless, this signal was sensitive enough to distinguish the "good" from the "better" or 鈥渟uper-synchronizers鈥�, as we sometimes call them.鈥�

It鈥檚 not clear whether anyone can become a super-synchronizer, but according to Palmer, the lead researcher, it may be possible to improve ones ability to synchronize.

鈥淭he range of musicians we sampled suggests that the answer would be yes. And the fact that only 2-3 % of the population are 鈥榖eat deaf鈥� is also encouraging. Practice definitely improves your ability and improves the alignment of the brain rhythms with the musical rhythms. But whether everyone is going to be as good as a drummer is not clear.鈥�