Rioux Pier-Alexandre, Grondin Simon
Université Laval, Quebec, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 28;15(1):3479. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-87631-2.
The preferred period hypothesis posits a slowing down of motor and perceptual rhythmic preferences with age, both reflecting an increase in the common internal oscillation period. This study further investigates the preferred period hypothesis by improving the measurement of perceptual rhythmic preferences through two tasks, tempo adjustment and tempo judgment, conducted in auditory and visual modalities. The study was conducted with three groups of children (5-6, 8-9, and 11-12 years old), and a group of young adults (21 to 30 years old) during the same time of the day. Correlational analyses show that the relationship between motor and perceptual rhythmic preferences strengthens between childhood and adulthood. Multilevel analyses reveal a general slowing down of motor and perceptual rhythmic preferences, contingent on the task and modality, with distinct trajectories for males and females. Our study indicate that the range of preferred rhythms narrows with age, becoming less variable in young adulthood, at the expense of a single and consistent, default rhythm. In brief, the preferred period appears only in young adults, with no support for the idea of a slowing down of an internal oscillation that would be reflected by both motor and perceptual rhythmic preferences.
偏好周期假说认为，随着年龄增长，运动和感知节奏偏好会放缓，这两者都反映出共同内部振荡周期的增加。本研究通过在听觉和视觉模式下进行的节奏调整和节奏判断这两项任务来改进对感知节奏偏好的测量，从而进一步探究偏好周期假说。该研究在一天中的同一时间对三组儿童（5至6岁、8至9岁和11至12岁）以及一组年轻人（21至30岁）进行。相关分析表明，运动和感知节奏偏好之间的关系在儿童期到成年期之间会增强。多层次分析揭示了运动和感知节奏偏好总体上的放缓，这取决于任务和模式，男性和女性有不同的轨迹。我们的研究表明，偏好节奏的范围随着年龄增长而变窄，在青年期变得变化较小，代价是单一且一致的默认节奏。简而言之，偏好周期仅出现在年轻人中，没有证据支持运动和感知节奏偏好会反映内部振荡放缓的观点。
