Rhythmic tapping to a moving beat motion kinematics overrules natural gravity

Beat induction is the cognitive ability that allows humans to listen a regular pulse in music and move synchrony with it. Although auditory rhythmic cues induce more consistent synchronization than flashing visual metronomes, this auditory-visual asymmetry can be canceled by moving stimuli. Here, we investigated whether naturalness of motion or its kinematics could provide advantage over metronomes. Subjects were asked tap sync metronomes defined vertically accelerating/decelerating motion, either congruent not natural gravity; horizontally motion; We found was predominant factor determining rhythm synchronization, as accelerating any cardinal direction produced precise predictive tapping decelerating conditions. Our results support notion convey strong sense beat, seen cueing movements an orchestra director.