Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Psychol Res. 2023 Apr;87(3):872-893. doi: 10.1007/s00426-022-01690-y. Epub 2022 Jun 12.
The ability to learn and reproduce sequences is fundamental to every-day life, and deficits in sequential learning are associated with developmental disorders such as specific language impairment. Individual differences in sequential learning are usually investigated using the serial reaction time task (SRTT), wherein a participant responds to a series of regularly timed, seemingly random visual cues that in fact follow a repeating deterministic structure. Although manipulating inter-cue interval timing has been shown to adversely affect sequential learning, the role of metre (the patterning of salience across time) remains unexplored within the regularly timed, visual SRTT. The current experiment consists of an SRTT adapted to include task-irrelevant auditory rhythms conferring a sense of metre. We predicted that (1) participants' (n = 41) reaction times would reflect the auditory metric structure; (2) that disrupting the correspondence between the learned visual sequence and auditory metre would impede performance; and (3) that individual differences in sensitivity to rhythm would predict the magnitude of these effects. Altering the relationship via a phase shift between the trained visual sequence and auditory metre slowed reaction times. Sensitivity to rhythm was predictive of reaction times over all. In an exploratory analysis, we, moreover, found that approximately half of participants made systematically different responses to visual cues on the basis of the cues' position within the auditory metre. We demonstrate the influence of auditory temporal structures on visuomotor sequential learning in a widely used task where metre and timing are rarely considered. The current results indicate sensitivity to metre as a possible latent factor underpinning individual differences in SRTT performance.
学习和复制序列的能力是日常生活的基础，而序列学习的缺陷与特定语言障碍等发育障碍有关。序列学习的个体差异通常使用序列反应时间任务（SRTT）进行研究，其中参与者对一系列定时出现的、看似随机的视觉线索做出反应，而这些线索实际上遵循重复的确定性结构。尽管已经证明操纵线索间间隔时间会对序列学习产生不利影响，但在定时、视觉 SRTT 中，节拍（时间上的显著性模式）的作用仍未得到探索。当前的实验由一个 SRTT 组成，该 SRTT 经过改编，包括赋予节拍感的无关听觉节奏。我们预测：（1）参与者（n=41）的反应时间将反映听觉度量结构；（2）破坏学习的视觉序列和听觉节拍之间的对应关系会阻碍表现；（3）对节奏的敏感性的个体差异将预测这些影响的大小。通过在训练有素的视觉序列和听觉节拍之间进行相位移动来改变关系会减慢反应时间。对节奏的敏感性在所有情况下都可以预测反应时间。在一项探索性分析中，我们还发现，大约一半的参与者根据听觉节拍内的线索位置，对视觉线索做出系统不同的反应。我们在一个广泛使用的任务中证明了听觉时间结构对视觉运动序列学习的影响，而在该任务中，节拍和时间很少被考虑。当前的结果表明，对节拍的敏感性可能是 SRTT 表现个体差异的潜在因素。
