Effects of pitch and tempo of auditory rhythms on spontaneous movement entrainment and stabilisation

Human movements spontaneously entrain to auditory rhythms, which can help to stabilise movements in time and space. The properties of auditory rhythms supporting the occurrence of this phenomenon, however, remain largely unclear. Here, we investigate in two experiments the effects of pitch and tempo on spontaneous movement entrainment and stabilisation. We examined spontaneous entrainment of hand-held pendulum swinging in time with low-pitched (100 Hz) and high-pitched (1600 Hz) metronomes to test whether low pitch favours movement entrainment and stabilisation. To investigate whether stimulation and movement tempi moderate these effects of pitch, we manipulated (1) participants’ preferred movement tempo by varying pendulum mechanical constraints (Experiment 1) and (2) stimulation tempo, which was either equal to, or slightly slower or faster (± 10%) than the participant’s preferred movement tempo (Experiment 2). The results showed that participants’ movements spontaneously entrained to auditory rhythms, and that this effect was stronger with low-pitched rhythms independently of stimulation and movement tempi. Results also indicated that auditory rhythms can lead to increased movement amplitude and stabilisation of movement tempo and amplitude, particularly when low-pitched. However, stabilisation effects were found to depend on intrinsic movement variability. Auditory rhythms decreased movement variability of individuals with higher intrinsic variability but increased movement variability of individuals with lower intrinsic variability. These findings provide new insights into factors that influence auditory–motor entrainment and how they may be optimised to enhance movement efficiency.