Psychological Research (2002) 66: 1±2
DOI 10.1007/s004260100068
E D I T ORI AL
Alan Wing á Neil Todd
Topics in rhythm perception and production
Accepted: 14 June 2001 / Published online: 6 October 2001
Ó Springer-Verlag 2001
In August 2000, the 8th International Rhythm Percep-
tion and Production Workshop (RPPW2000) was held
at Losehill Hall, Castleton in the UK. With the founding
meeting organised by A. Wing in Cambridge (UK) and
subsequent meetings in Horssen (Netherlands), Rau-
ischholzhausen (Germany), Bourges (France), Ohlstadt
(Germany), Sheeld (UK), Wassenaar (Netherlands),
RPPW has come to be identi®ed as a primary forum for
research on human timing. Up-to-date information
concerning future RPPW events may be obtained at
http://www.rppw.org.
An RPPW tradition is that the ®rst day of the
meeting is given over to tutorials by experts in the ®eld.
This year the topic chosen was the `Neurobiology of
Time'. Four tutorial papers were presented by
N. Ramnani (Imaging brain function in sensory-motor
processing), M. Wiesendanger (Neurobiology of timing
in movement performance), S. Shamma (Temporal
coding in the auditory cortex) and D. O'Boyle (Neuro-
psychology of timing). On the following 3 days, 39 pa-
pers were presented on topics spanning synchronisation,
rhythm perception, rhythm production, tempo and beat
induction, memory and attention, music performance
and neural mechanisms (abstracts may be obtained at
http://www.rppw.org). The meeting closed with a
structured discussion led by N. Todd and J. Wearden on
`The relevance of the internal clock in accounting for
human timing behaviour'.
The following papers in this special issue of Psycho-
logical Research represent a subset of those presented at
RPPW2000. These papers have been subject to the
normal peer review process and we gratefully acknowl-
A. Wing (&)
Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre,
The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
E-mail: a.m.wing@bham.ac.uk
N. Todd
Department of Psychology, University of Manchester,
Manchester, UK
edge the contribution of the reviewers listed at the end of
this editorial. We also appreciate the support and en-
couragement of editor of Psychological Research (Peter
Frensch). For the purposes of this special issue we have
grouped the papers into two sections; Synchronisation
(with an external referent timing signal) and Continua-
tion (unpaced timing; without external standard, but
often preceded by a synchronisation phase). In the
studies described, target time patterns include isochro-
nous (equal interval) and structured rhythms, with
subjects producing intervals with one or two e€ectors,
with or without manipulation of sensory feedback.
In the ®rst paper on synchronisation, Large, Fink
and Kelso (Tracking simple and complex sequences)
describe two experiments investigating the tracking of
simple, isochronous and complex, metrically structured
rhythmic sequences. Phase and period perturbations
were used to assess performance stability in terms of the
degree of adaptation of intrinsic tapping frequency. The
main ®ndings were that people synchronise with un-
predictable, metrically structured rhythms at di€erent
metrical levels, with qualitatively di€erent patterns of
synchronisation seen at higher versus lower levels of
metrical structure, and synchronisation at each tapping
level re¯ects information from other metrical levels. The
latter ®nding is interpreted as evidence for a dynamic
and ¯exible internal representation of the sequence's
metrical structure.
A non-linear oscillator-based model of beat induction
is o€ered by Eck (Finding downbeats with a relaxation
oscillator). The novelty of his approach is in using a
relaxation, rather than a sinusoidal oscillator, and the
paper describes various properties of the model, in-
cluding its sensitivity to noise and input strength. The
model is tested with input consisting of rhythmic pat-
terns that have been used in previous psychophysical
studies, thus allowing a comparison of the model's in-
terpretation of the patterns with beat assignment by
human observers.
A second theoretical paper is provided by Todd, Lee,
and O'Boyle (A sensory-motor theory of temporal
2
tracking and beat induction). A theory of the basis of
rhythm perception and synchronisation is presented in
terms of the neurobiology of sensory-guided action.
Brain structures thought to be involved in the interac-
tions between ``plant'' (the body), ``controller'' (the
central nervous system), and ``sensory system'' are re-
viewed drawing on published neuropsychological and
neurophysiological studies. A computational account
based on the theory is presented of synchronisation and
beat induction with syllable and click sequences.
The section on synchronisation is completed by a
paper by Stenneken, Aschersleben, Cole and Prinz
(Dea€erentation e€ects on self-induced versus reactive
triggering of synchronous movements). Two experi-
ments address the role of sensory information in the
timing of simultaneous hand and foot movements. The
®rst involved producing single pairs of hand and foot
responses, either as a simple reaction time response or in
self-paced manner. The second involved repetitive si-
multaneous hand and foot synchronisation tapping. The
performance of healthy controls was compared with a
dea€erented subject (IW). In the ®rst experiment IW
showed similar asynchrony to controls in the simple
reaction task, but a larger asynchrony in the self-paced
movement. Surprisingly, IW's asynchrony was the same
as controls in the synchronisation task. The authors
conclude that even in the absence of sensory feedback
IW maintained timing in terms of expected sensory
consequences.
Semjen and Vos (The impact of metrical structure on
performance stability in bimanual tapping) provide the
®rst paper on continuation. They examined the ability to
tap a three-beat pattern (strong-weak-weak) with one
hand, while synchronising taps of the other hand, at one-
third the frequency, to either beat 1, 2, or 3. They found
that performance was less stable when the two hands were
in a metrically incongruous relation (the slower hand
synchronising with one of the two weak beats). Their
analysis of between-hand covariance and asynchrony
variance indicates that the variability arose in motor
implementation rather than timekeeping processes.
Bilateral repetitive movements are made with greater
temporal regularity than unilateral movements and this
has been attributed to integration of separate (output)
timers. Drewing, Hennings and Aschersleben (The con-
tribution of tactile rea€erence to temporal regularity
during bimanual ®nger tapping) examine the possible
role played by sensory information in this bimanual
advantage. The authors argue that, in contrast to uni-
manual tapping, during bimanual tapping the additional
sensory information is used to modulate the timing of
each hand, perhaps through a comparison of the sensory
signals or the ``anticipation'' of these sensory signals.
Thus, in one study they show a reduction in the bi-
manual advantage when tactile rea€erence was reduced
in one hand (by contact-free ``tapping'' with that hand).
They suggest a reinterpretation of the Wing-Kristo€er-
son model with timing of movement end point rather
than movement onset.
Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) typically disrupts
timing of serial performance. Pfordresher and Palmer
(E€ects of delayed auditory feedback on timing of music
performance) examined whether disruptive e€ects of
DAF on piano timing performance vary as a function of
temporal relations between produced note onsets and
feedback. Timing variability was reduced for one of two
tempo conditions when DAF onsets subdivided pro-
duced intervals in two. Performers exhibited preferences
for rates at which DAF onsets evenly subdivided pro-
duced intervals in a second study. In a third study, in-
structions to mentally subdivide produced intervals
reduced overall temporal disruption from DAF. The
authors conclude that matches between DAF onsets and
planned subdivisions can facilitate performance.
Timing is more variable if carried out simultaneously
with a second task. Brown and Bennett (The role of
practice and automaticity in temporal and nontemporal
dual task performance) report that practice on two
contrasting tasks, pursuit-rotor tracking and mirror-
word reading, resulted in a reduction in timing vari-
ability in a concurrent time interval production task.
This was the case even after the very ®rst session. Fur-
ther practice on the second task resulted in no further
reduction in timing variability, although timing perfor-
mance was still more variable than when carried out in
isolation. The authors suggest that increased timing
variability is due to limited attentional resources that are
required for both the temporal and the secondary task.
They suggest that as the nontemporal task becomes
more automated by practice, its attentional demands
decrease and, even though these attentional demands are
nontemporal, interference with timing is reduced.
Acknowledgements RPPW2000 and this special issue were made
possible by grants from the UK EPSRC (GRN0505501) and
Wellcome Trust (058215). We gratefully acknowledge the contri-
bution of the following reviewers for this special issue: Peter Beek,
Gordon Brown, Scott Brown, Bob Carlyon, Avner Caspi, Keith
Davids, Peter Desain, Carolyn Drake, Knut Drewing, Doug Eck,
Tamar Flash, Marek Franek, Dietmar Grube, Peter Howell, Rich
Ivry, Bruce Kay, Ed Large, Francois Xavier Li, Peter Keller, Guy
Madison, Chris Miall, Don O'Boyle, Amandine Penel, Peter
Pfordresher, Bruno Repp, Mari Riess Jones, Sophie Scott, Andras
Semjen, Prisca Stenneken, Dirk Vorberg, Piet Vos, Luke Windsor.