Abstract
Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), the temporal coordination of an external stimulus with motor movement, can be witnessed overtly with dancing and tapping to the tempo of music. However, the learned ability to synchronize reflects fundamental functions in our daily lives beyond music perception, including the visual detection of movement, gestures, and body language. Our previous work revealed that SMS to visual flashing patterns, while less consistent than SMS to auditory or tactile patterns, was still evident in a sample of non-musicians. Although numerous studies have speculated the potential role of auditory imagery, its contribution to visual SMS performance remains unclear. Using a synchronization-continuation task and a visual stimulus that included apparent motion, SMS performance was measured in both synchronization (with visual cues) and continuation (without visual cues) phases. Participants also completed an auditory imagery questionnaire and self-reported the vividness of their imagery experiences throughout the task. A significant effect of trial phase suggested that participants performed SMS more consistently in the synchronization phase than in the continuation phase of trials. A significant interaction between trial phase and auditory imagery vividness scores suggested that by utilizing auditory imagery, participants with higher imagery scores were able to perform SMS in the synchronisation and continuation phases with similar consistency. Furthermore, autocorrelation analysis revealed a commonly used counting strategy that matched the visual rhythm, only utilized during the continuation phase. Together, our results implicate the contribution of auditory imagery to SMS with visual stimuli.