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Moving in time : Bayesian causal inference explains movement coordination to auditory beats
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Elliott, Mark T., Wing, Alan M. and Welchman, Andrew E. (2014) Moving in time : Bayesian causal inference explains movement coordination to auditory beats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume 281 (Number 1786). Article number 20140751. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0751 ISSN 0962-8452.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.0751
Abstract
Many everyday skilled actions depend on moving in time with signals that are embedded in complex auditory streams (e.g. musical performance, dancing or simply holding a conversation). Such behaviour is apparently effortless; however, it is not known how humans combine auditory signals to support movement production and coordination. Here, we test how participants synchronize their movements when there are potentially conflicting auditory targets to guide their actions. Participants tapped their fingers in time with two simultaneously presented metronomes of equal tempo, but differing in phase and temporal regularity. Synchronization therefore depended on integrating the two timing cues into a single-event estimate or treating the cues as independent and thereby selecting one signal over the other. We show that a Bayesian inference process explains the situations in which participants choose to integrate or separate signals, and predicts motor timing errors. Simulations of this causal inference process demonstrate that this model provides a better description of the data than other plausible models. Our findings suggest that humans exploit a Bayesian inference process to control movement timing in situations where the origin of auditory signals needs to be resolved.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QP Physiology | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Engineering > WMG (Formerly the Warwick Manufacturing Group) | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Sensorimotor integration, Human beings -- Attitude and movement, Auditory evoked response | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences | ||||||||
Publisher: | The Royal Society Publishing | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0962-8452 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 21 May 2014 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Volume 281 | ||||||||
Number: | Number 1786 | ||||||||
Number of Pages: | 9 | ||||||||
Article Number: | Article number 20140751 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1098/rspb.2014.0751 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 December 2015 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 28 December 2015 | ||||||||
Funder: | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Wellcome Trust (London, England) | ||||||||
Grant number: | EP/I031030/1 (EPSRC), 095183/Z/10/Z (WT) | ||||||||
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