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. 2015 Jun:41:265-81.
doi: 10.1016/j.humov.2015.03.011. Epub 2015 Apr 9.

Informational constraints on spontaneous visuomotor entrainment

Manuel Varlet  1 , Colleen Bucci  2 , Michael J Richardson  3 , R C Schmidt  2
Affiliations

Informational constraints on spontaneous visuomotor entrainment

Manuel Varlet et al. Hum Mov Sci. 2015 Jun.

Abstract

Past research has revealed that an individual's rhythmic limb movements become spontaneously entrained to an environmental rhythm if visual information about the rhythm is available and its frequency is near that of the individual's movements. Research has also demonstrated that if the eyes track an environmental stimulus, the spontaneous entrainment to the rhythm is strengthened. One hypothesis explaining this enhancement of spontaneous entrainment is that the limb movements and eye movements are linked through a neuromuscular coupling or synergy. Another is that eye-tracking facilitates the pick up of important coordinating information. Experiment 1 investigated the first hypothesis by evaluating whether any rhythmic movement of the eyes would facilitate spontaneous entrainment. Experiments 2 and 3 (respectively) explored whether eye-tracking strengthens spontaneous entrainment by allowing the pickup of trajectory direction change information or allowing an increase in the amount of information to be picked-up. Results suggest that the eye-tracking enhancement of spontaneous entrainment is a consequence of increasing the amount of information available to be picked-up.

Keywords: External visual rhythms; Eye-tracking; Spontaneous visuomotor entrainment; Unintentional coordination.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illustration of the experimental setup.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Illustration of the different visual displays used in Experiment 1. Control (top left), stationary (top right), horizontal eye movement (bottom left) and vertical eye movement (bottom right).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relative phase distributions obtained for each eye-tracking condition in Experiment 1. The results obtained for the groups that performed horizontal and vertical eye movements are represented at the top and bottom of the figure, respectively.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relative phase distributions obtained for the three non-tracking placement groups in Experiment 2.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Relative phase distributions obtained for the different perceptual focus conditions in Experiment 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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