Moving to the beat improves timekeeping in a rhythm perception task

A study that examines the effect of tapping on participants' sensitivity to changes in the temporal location of a probe tone is presented. The experiment was conducted using a customized program design by the MAPLE lab at McMaster University. Tones were presented to participants stimuli headphones and participants tapped on an electronic drum pad. During the experiment, participants were presented with a total of 64 trials. Half of the blocks employed a 101 of 400ms and the other half employed an 101 of 600ms. All participants gave informed consent and were remunerated with course credit for their participation. The effect of movement on rhythm perception is consistent with previous work showing that movement can affect the perception of metrically ambiguous stimuli.