From Individual to Shared Tempo: How Spontaneous Tempo Preferences Impact Joint Performance

Abstract

Endogenous rhythmic structure is a key characteristic of our cognitive system, organizing both sensory processes and motor behavior. In the motor domain, recent studies demonstrated that individuals vary systematically in the spontaneous tempo of self-paced movement, exhibiting consistent tempo preferences across time, tasks, and cognitive demands. In our daily experience, we often need to perform with others, adjusting our motor signatures to support interpersonal coordination. The purpose of this study is to examine how individuals with distinct spontaneous tempi reconcile their personal tempo preferences with the need to synchronize during joint performance. To this end, we measured individuals spontaneous tempo across different days using three motor behaviors: tapping, walking, and bouncing. This design allowed us to examine both temporal consistency and cross-task consistency. Participants were then asked to perform these tasks together under two experimental conditions: (1) side-by-side, without explicit instructions to synchronize, and (2) with explicit instructions to synchronize their movements. Our findings replicate and extend recent work, demonstrating that individuals show stable rhythmic preferences across time, tasks, and interactive contexts. When performing together, two complementary patterns emerged. First, dyads converged on a common tempo around 2 Hz, reflecting a preferred tempo for joint rhythmic performance. Second, individuals retained a bias toward their own spontaneous tempo during joint performance, with faster or slower individuals performing correspondingly fast or slow within the range of dyadic tempo. Finally, individuals with more similar spontaneous tempi achieved greater synchrony and temporal stability when performing together. Thus, while individuals can flexibly adjust their spontaneous tempo to support joint action, personal tempo preferences remain a robust source of variability in how people perform and interact with others.