Effects of Rhythm and Accent Patterns on Tempo-Keeping Property of Finger Tapping

Tempo of music performance is often accelerated irrespective of players’ intention. Though the characteristics of the tempo deviation phenomenon have been investigated using a finger tapping task, most such studies dealt with tapping with a fixed interval; few studies considered the effects of rhythm and accent, both important factors of music performance. Here, we asked how different rhythm and accent patterns affected the tempo-keeping property using a synchronization-continuation task paradigm: Participants were asked to keep tapping with reproducing the given rhythm/accent patterns. Tapping tempo was significantly deviated depending on rhythm/accent patterns, but their magnitudes were only several percent in a hundred of seconds, much smaller than those in real music performance. Notably, the tempo was often deviated just after the transition from the synchronization phase to the continuation phase, suggesting that some cognitive/emotional factor may affect the process of tempo maintenance. We also ran experiments in the conditions that participants need not to reproduce the accent patterns but only feedback tones were modulated. These auditory modulations also induced the tempo deviation, implying that both motor and perceptual factors are involved in the long-term tempo deviation.