Feel the Beat: The Impact of Rhythms on Dynamic Visual Search

Abstract

Rhythms are everywhere - we encounter them daily within our environment and produce them regularly through our movements, speech and sensory systems. In both cognitive and clinical contexts, external rhythms have been shown to enhance performance when they are aligned with, predict, or entrain stimuli onsets or relevant moments in time. In this study, we aimed to understand the impact of external and internal rhythms on performance in a task devoid of rhythmic temporal structure. We thus investigated the differential impact of auditory beats (1-, 2-, 5-Hz, or no beat) on detection in a non-rhythmic, dynamic search task requiring the continuous deployment of attention. We additionally assessed whether the influence of auditory beats on detection was modulated by individuals rhythmic preferences as measured by their spontaneous motor tempo. Overall, we found that auditory rhythms enhanced visual task performance, even in the absence of rhythmic structure within the measured task, improving both detection accuracy and response speed. This enhancement was tempo-dependent, with the strongest facilitation observed at 2 Hz. The magnitude of the observed benefits varied with individuals spontaneous motor tempo, such that participants with slower SMTs exhibited the greatest performance benefits due to the presence of auditory rhythms. We propose that rhythmic stimulation may serve as a powerful scaffold for sustained performance in the context of dynamic and temporally unpredictable environments.