Effects of rhythmic tapping on speech perception

Rhythm generation and perception appear to be involved in speech production and perception. Previous studies have shown that rhythmic synchronization can be observed in vocal-mimicking animals, suggesting a close link between rhythm and vocalization abilities. Furthermore, the results of previous behavioral studies suggest that auditory-motor synchronization via finger tapping plays an important role in speech rhythm processing. This study aimed to investigate the effects of simple rhythm generation (tapping) on speech perception and elucidate the underlying mechanisms. We examined whether rhythmic tapping affects listening comprehension of spectrally degraded but rhythmically preserved speech sounds. Participants listened to the speech sound while performing finger tapping with regular (1:1) and swing (2:1) rhythms at 74 and 111 bpm, and a no-tapping control. A preliminary result showed that speech intelligibility tended to decrease during swing tapping compared to regular tapping at 74 bpm. This suggests that active rhythm generation can interfere with speech perception.