Timing processes are correlated when tasks share a salient event.
Event timing is manifested when participants make discrete movements such as repeatedly tapping a key. Emergent timing is manifested when participants make continuous movements such as repeatedly drawing a circle. Here we pursued the possibility that providing salient perceptual events to mark the completion of time intervals could allow circle drawing and tapping to share a common timing process. Individual differences in timing performance were correlated in the tapping and circle drawing tasks when a salient auditory event marked the completion of a cycle. The results suggest that the distinction between event timing and emergent timing does not inhere solely in kinematics but inheres as well in the way task goals are represented.
Zelaznik
Howard N
HN
Department of Health and Kinesiology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. hnzelaz@purdue.edu
Rosenbaum
David A
DA
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001288:Attention; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009043:Motor Activity; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D013998:Time Perception