title: Spontaneous eye blinks are entrained by finger tapping.
abstract: We studied the mutual cross-talk between spontaneous eye blinks and continuous, self-paced unimanual and bimanual tapping. Both types of motor activities were analyzed with regard to their time-structure in synchronization-continuation tapping tasks which involved different task instructions, namely "standard" finger tapping (Experiment 1), "strong" tapping (Experiment 2) requiring more forceful finger movements, and "impulse-like" tapping (Experiment 3) where upward-downward finger movements had to be very fast. In a further control condition (Experiment 4), tapping was omitted altogether. The results revealed a prominent entrainment of spontaneous blink behavior by the manual tapping, with bimanual tapping being more effective than unimanual tapping, and with the "strong" and "impulse-like" tapping showing the largest effects on blink timing. Conversely, we found no significant effects of the tapping on the timing of the eye blinks across all experiments. The findings suggest a functional overlap of the motor control structures responsible for voluntary, rhythmic finger movements and eye blinking behavior.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Communications Engineering, University of Federal Armed Forces Munich, Neubiberg 85579, Germany.
authors.forename: D-K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Cong
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sharikadze
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Staude
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Deubel
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wolf
mesh_terms: D001767:Blinking; D004585:Electrooculography; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*