Timing continuous or discontinuous movements across effectors specified by different pacing modalities and intervals

Sensorimotor synchronization is hypothesized to arise through two different processes, associated with continuous or discontinuous rhythmic movements. This study investigated synchronization of continuous and discontinuous movements to different pacing signals (auditory or visual), pacing interval (500, 650, 800, 950 ms) and across effectors (non-dominant vs. non-dominant hand). The results showed that mean and variability of asynchronization errors were consistently smaller for discontinuous movements compared to continuous movements. Furthermore, both movement types were timed more accurately with auditory pacing compared to visual pacing and were more accurate with the dominant hand. Shortening the pacing interval also improved sensorimotor synchronization accuracy in both continuous and discontinuous movements. These results show the dependency of temporal control of movements on the nature of the motor task, the type and rate of extrinsic sensory information as well as the efficiency of the motor actuators for sensory integration.