Abstract
Do individuals recognize their own clapping? We investigated this question with an off-line paradigm in which the perception of the claps is temporally separated from their generation. In a first experiment, we demonstrated that acoustic recordings of clapping provide sufficient information for discriminating between one’s own performance and that of another participant. Self-recognition was still preserved when the claps were reproduced by uniform tones that only retained their temporal pattern. In a subsequent experiment, we verified that the general tempo provides an important cue for self-recognition. Finally, we showed that self-recognition does not rely on concurrent synchronization of actual movements with the auditory sequences. The results are discussed in the light of current theories about perception-action links.
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Notes
We are grateful to Bruno Repp for suggesting this interpretation. In Repp’s (1987) study, the participants were not asked to maintain a constant tempo in the recording session. In addition, they were not asked to accompany the recorded claps with synchronization responses in the test session.
We determined the general tempo of a sequence by the average of all complete sequence periods. The accuracy of sequence reproduction was determined by the ratios of adjacent intervals. These observed ratios were then compared with the expected ratios, as indicated in Fig. 1, by calculating the differences, squaring them, adding up the squared differences, and deriving the square root of the sum. This variable error has the advantage that it is logically independent of the differences in general tempo. Next, we assessed the reliability of these inter-individual difference measures. Overall correlations of these measures between the two sessions as well as individual comparisons for each participant pair showed that the general tempo, but not the accuracy, of sequence reproduction was a reliable inter-individual difference measure. A standard regression analysis of the self-recognition measure revealed only general tempo to be a significant predictor. Pairs of participants who showed large differences in general tempo were more likely to recognize their own clapping sequences than pairs of participants who did not show large differences in general tempo.
In contrast to Experiment 1, Experiment 2 revealed a significant effect of authorship on synchronization performance. Participants were less variable when synchronizing with self-generated sequences than when synchronizing with other sequences. Moreover, the more variable the participant’s synchronization performance was with regard to the other participant’s sequences than with regard to his or her own sequences, the more often the self-recognition judgments were correct. The fact that the analysis of the synchronization performance did not reveal more significant effects of authorship may be rooted in the fact that the overall synchronization performance was rather variable and error-prone. This fact was especially challenging for the pre-analysis of the synchronization data. Nonetheless, the analysis of the synchronization data reliably showed significant block effects for the constant and the variable error of synchronization, decreasing with increasing practice.
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Acknowledgements
Rüdiger Flach, Günther Knoblich and Wolfgang Prinz, Arbeitsgruppe Kognition & Handlung. We thank Patric Bach, Jana Hiller, and Nadja Hristova for their help in collecting the data.
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Flach, R., Knoblich, G. & Prinz, W. Recognizing one’s own clapping: The role of temporal cues. Psychological Research 69, 147–156 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0165-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0165-2