Tapping in Synchrony With Beat Enhances Groove Sensation

Music listening induces a pleasurable urge to move, termed groove, which the active inference framework explains as a motivation for bodily movement that emerges to refine beat and metrical predictions under rhythmic uncertainty. If this is the case, does bodily movement modulate the groove sensation? We asked 42 participants to rate urge-to-move and pleasure after withholding movement or tapping on the onbeat or offbeat within a four-beat meter while listening to melodies with three degrees of syncopation. At the low degree of syncopation, urge-to-move and pleasure ratings were higher in both the onbeat and offbeat tapping conditions compared with the no-tapping condition. Furthermore, relative to the offbeat and no-tapping conditions, onbeat tapping increased neural and behavioral entrainment to the beat, as reflected in the steady-state auditory evoked potentials in electroencephalography and intertap interval variability, respectively, and these measures of entrainment were positively associated with groove ratings. The results suggest that tapping enhances the sensation of groove, but the underlying mechanism may not be active inference.