Temporal adaptation and anticipation mechanisms in sensorimotor synchronization

162 Pages·2015·2.6 MB·English

Maria Christine van der Steen: Temporal adaptation and anticipation
mechanisms in sensorimotor synchronization. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for
Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 2014 (MPI Series in Human Cognitive
and Brain Sciences; 162)
Temporal adaptation and anticipation mechanisms in sensorimotor synchronization
Impressum
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 2014
Diese Arbeit ist unter folgender Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0
Druck: Sächsisches Druck- und Verlagshaus Direct World, Dresden
Titelbild: © Maria Christine van der Steen, 2014
ISBN 978-3-941504-46-2
Temporal adaptation and anticipation mechanisms
in sensorimotor synchronization

Der Fakultät für Biowissenschaften, Pharmazie und Psychologie
der Universität Leipzig
eingereichte

D I S S E R T A T I O N

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

doctor rerum naturalium
Dr. rer. Nat

vorgelegt von
Maria Christine van der Steen, MSc.
geboren am 03.12.1985 in Veghel, die Niederlande

Leipzig, 10.07.2014

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Gutachter

Prof. Dr. Sonja A. Kotz
Prof. Dr. Erich Schröger
Univ. Prof. Dr. med. Eckart Altenmüller

Tag der Verteidigung: 18. Dezember 2014

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Acknowledgements
These acknowledgements are most likely the first and probably by far the most often read part of this
PhD-thesis. I must admit I have been looking forward to writing these words of thank. Without your
help, support, and the relax-moments you gave me this thesis would have never been written.

First, I would like to express my gratitude to Peter Keller, my supervisor who accepted me via a
Skype-interview into his group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
and the EBRAMUS program. Full of expectations and plans I came to Leipzig in the fall of 2010.
Although most of these did not come true, the last 3.5 years did allow me to explore and develop new
sides of myself and visit many interesting places. Thank you for your guidance and all the
opportunities you gave me!
A big thank you goes out to all the members of the Music Cognition and Action group. I keep good
memories of our time at the Seeburgstraße. Especially, I would like to thank Kerstin, Felix and Maria
who helped me to collect the data for the projects in Leipzig. A special thank you goes out to
Annerose, who welcomed me into her amazing apartment and therefore gave me a great start in
Leipzig. Furthermore, a very warm thank you to Merle and Marie, who taught me that girls wear
dresses and who were always up for a fairytale ball or a relaxing cup of coffee.

Second, I am in great debt with Eckart Altenmuller and the members of the Institute of Music
Physiology  and  Musicians’  Medicine  for  a  great  time  in Hannover. What started off as 3 month visit,
turned into a 16 month stay. The amazing atmosphere made me feel right at home. Dear professor,
thank you for your hospitality, interest, and support. I really enjoyed being part of your group.
Shinichi, it was an honor being able to work with you. You showed me again that science can be
straightforward and fun. Daniel, my roomie, I appreciate your attempts to make me less of a control
freak and to enjoy more. Christos, Felicia, Mee-Ling, Britta, and Eva thank you for the coffees, girls-
nights, and Dutch-dinners, they were a welcome distraction. André, Mai, and Maic thank you for
introducing me to Benedict Cumberbatch and the fun nights that followed. I would like to thank
Erwin, Michael, Martin, and Frau Pölkner for our discussions and your help. Additionally, I would
like to thank the students at IMMM for their help running the experiments, for correcting my attempts
to write in German, and mostly for the sparks in their eyes when they realized how cool science can
be.

Furthermore, I would like to thank all the people that have enriched these last 3.5 years in many
different ways. Of course I would like to thank the EBRAMUS consortium for the interesting schools,
workshops and meetings all over Europe! My fellow ER/ESRs, it was a pleasure and great honor to
take this journey together with you. I hope we will manage to somehow stay in contact. Floris, thank
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you for our fun and successful EBRAMUS-collaboration, which is presented in Chapter 4. Laura,
thank you for the wonderful time in Leipzig and for being my personal crisis-intervention person.
Without your friendship it would not have been the same. Riccardo, Ellie, Kristina, David, and
Charles-Etienne: I still enjoy the memories of our amusing evenings filled with good food and playing
games. I would like to thank my fellow conference attendees from all over the world for the fun and
inspiring conferences. Nori, thank you for the collaboration that resulted in Chapter 3. Furthermore, I
would –once again– like to thank Raoul for introducing me to the world of science and for always
having an open door that welcomes me whenever I am seeking for advice or just would like to catch
up.

A final and perhaps even most deeply word of thanks goes out to my friends and family, the people
who stood always by me. I want to thank Steffie, Evelien, Imke, Sophie, Karin, and Liesbet for the
many (Skype-) phone calls, for visiting me in Germany, and for the lovely dinners in the Netherlands.
I also enjoyed the visits and remote but continuous support from Mariska & Rob, Loes, and Michelle
& Rob; I hope there are many ‘leuke-mensen-etentjes’  yet  to  come! Jeroen, Lonneke, Willem, Eva,
Ruud, Roel, Joran, Lydia, Wilbert, Hanneke, Rudi, Sylvia, Arthur, Marieke, Kyra, Gijs, Thijs en
Willeke: Thank you for your friendship. I would like to thank Tonnie, Ans, Renske, Ron, and Fenne
for welcoming me to the family. Thanks to my entire family for accepting that I was not always there
and for always being interested in my developments and new plans. Mam, pap, Geerte, Sebas, and Iris
thank you for keeping me grounded and for your unconditional love and support. And last but
definitely not least my dearest Twan, thank you for always having been there, for all your help and
support, for giving me the space and time to find myself, and for bringing me home. Ik vind je de
allerliefste!

Marieke van der Steen
‘s-Hertogenbosch, July 2014

In loving memory of my grandfather, Joan van der Steen

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Table of content

Acknowledgements 3

Table of content 5

Chapter 1 7
Introduction

Chapter 2 23
The Adaptation and Anticipation Model (ADAM) of sensorimotor synchronization

Chapter 3 59
Sensorimotor synchronization with tempo changing auditory sequences

Chapter 4 99
Basic  timing  abilities  stay  intact  in  patients  with  musician’s  dystonia

Summary 127
Zusammenfassung 131

List of figures 137
List of tables 141

Curriculum Vitae 143
Publications 144

Confirmation of contribution of co-authors 147
Confirmation of contribution of co-authors 148
Confirmation of contribution of co-authors 149

Selbständigkeitserklärung zum monographischen Kapitel 1 151
Selbständigkeitserklärung 152

Bibliographic details 153

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 GOAL  OF  THE  DISSERTATION
We live in a constantly changing environment. Many of our activities require interaction with
this dynamic environment, not uncommonly also involving other people. Consider yourself
dancing during a night out with friends. Seemingly effortlessly you synchronize your dance
moves to the music and your friends. How are we able to effectively coordinate our actions
without losing flexibility? This flexibility is, for example, necessary to be able to continue to
dance also with the next song that might be of a different genre and at a different tempo.
Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) is the temporal coordination of actions with external
events (cf. Repp, 20051). SMS is essential for the successful coordination of movements.
Some people, like professional dancers, musicians, and rowers, display extraordinary skills in
timing their movement accurately and precisely (e.g. Keller & Appel, 2010; Wing, Endo,
Bradbury, & Vorberg, 2014; Wing & Woodburn, 1995), while other people seem to be less
skilled. Several patient groups have even shown explicit problems related to SMS. For
example,   Parkinson’s   disease   patients   exhibit   problems   when   reproducing   intervals   of  
different   lengths   (Pastor,   Artieda,   Jahanshahi,   &   Obeso,   1992)   and   Musician’s   dystonia  
patients show impairments in detecting late stimuli in a train of auditory onsets (Lim,
Bradshaw, Nicholls, & Altenmüller, 2003). Furthermore, patients with lesions in the basal
ganglia or cerebellum as a result of a stroke have been found to have compromised
synchronization behavior (e.g. Ivry, Spencer, Zelaznik, & Diedrichsen, 2002; Schwartze,
Keller,   Patel,   &   Kotz,   2011).   Interestingly,   despite   the   timing   problems   Parkinson’s patients
might display, the gait of these patients has been shown to benefit from external auditory
timing cues (Lim et al., 2005). Furthermore, stroke and traumatic brain injury patients achieve
significant improvements after rehabilitation programs involving synchronization with music
(e.g. Schneider, Schönle, Altenmüller, & Münte, 2007; Thaut et al., 2009).
Overall, these studies suggest that SMS is an important aspect of successful motor timing and
that it might be exploited in motor rehabilitation programs for different patient groups. The
goal of this PhD was to get a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of SMS, in

1 Citations in this chapter follow the rules and regulations established by the American Psychological Association (APA). In
the remaining chapters the citation style of the specific journal were the paper was published/ submitted was applied.
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