Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
The planning and execution of short auditory sequences
1Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1a, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. keller@cbs.mpg.de
Abstract:
Action planning, but not action execution, in speeded tasks is typically faster when responses and their effects are compatible than when they are incompatible. We tested whether response-effect compatibility (REC) affects the execution of music-like sequential actions that require temporal regularity rather than rapidity. Musicians responded to metronomic visual stimuli by producing sequences of three taps at a specific tempo on three vertically aligned keys. Each tap triggered a tone. Key-to-tone mapping was either compatible or incompatible in terms of spatial height and pitch height. The results indicated that tap timing was more accurate with compatible than with incompatible mappings, both for taps produced before (Tap 1) and after (Taps 2 and 3) the onset of auditory feedback. Thus, the observed influence of REC on action execution was not due exclusively to actual auditory feedback. The anticipation of distal action effects may be involved in planning the dynamics of temporally precise movements.
Related Concept Videos
Hearing
Auditory Pathway
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking the...
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...
Chunking and Rehearsal in Sensory Memory
The Cochlea
Auditory Perception

