Su Yi-Huang
Department of Movement Science, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich Munich, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2016 Apr 27;10:186. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00186. eCollection 2016.
Rhythm perception and synchronization have been extensively investigated in the auditory domain, as they underlie means of human communication such as music and speech. Although recent studies suggest comparable mechanisms for synchronizing with periodically moving visual objects, the extent to which it applies to ecologically relevant information, such as the rhythm of complex biological motion, remains unknown. The present study addressed this issue by linking rhythm of music and dance in the framework of action-perception coupling. As a previous study showed that observers perceived multiple metrical periodicities in dance movements that embodied this structure, the present study examined whether sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) to dance movements resembles what is known of auditory SMS. Participants watched a point-light figure performing two basic steps of Swing dance cyclically, in which the trunk bounced at every beat and the limbs moved at every second beat, forming two metrical periodicities. Participants tapped synchronously to the bounce of the trunk with or without the limbs moving in the stimuli (Experiment 1), or tapped synchronously to the leg movements with or without the trunk bouncing simultaneously (Experiment 2). Results showed that, while synchronization with the bounce (lower-level pulse) was not influenced by the presence or absence of limb movements (metrical accent), synchronization with the legs (beat) was improved by the presence of the bounce (metrical subdivision) across different movement types. The latter finding parallels the "subdivision benefit" often demonstrated in auditory tasks, suggesting common sensorimotor mechanisms for visual rhythms in dance and auditory rhythms in music.
节奏感知与同步在听觉领域已得到广泛研究，因为它们是音乐和言语等人类交流方式的基础。尽管最近的研究表明，存在与周期性移动的视觉对象同步的类似机制，但这种机制在多大程度上适用于生态相关信息，如复杂生物运动的节奏，仍不清楚。本研究通过在动作 - 感知耦合框架内将音乐节奏与舞蹈节奏联系起来，解决了这个问题。正如之前的一项研究表明，观察者在体现这种结构的舞蹈动作中感知到多个韵律周期性，本研究考察了对舞蹈动作的感觉运动同步（SMS）是否类似于已知的听觉SMS。参与者观看一个点光源人物周期性地表演摇摆舞的两个基本步骤，其中躯干在每一拍时跳动，四肢在每两拍时移动，形成两个韵律周期性。参与者在刺激中四肢移动或不移动的情况下，同步跟随躯干的跳动进行敲击（实验1），或者在躯干同时跳动或不跳动的情况下，同步跟随腿部动作进行敲击（实验2）。结果表明，虽然与跳动（较低层次的脉冲）的同步不受四肢动作（韵律重音）的存在或缺失的影响，但在不同的运动类型中，跳动（韵律细分）的存在会改善与腿部（节拍） 的同步。后一个发现与听觉任务中经常证明的 “细分益处” 相似，表明舞蹈中的视觉节奏和音乐中的听觉节奏存在共同的感觉运动机制。
