Beat synchronization across the lifespan: intersection of development and musical experience

Rhythmic entrainment, or beat synchronization, provides an opportunity to understand how multiple systems operate together to integrate sensory-motor information. Also, synchronization is an essential component of musical performance that may be enhanced through musical training. Investigations of rhythmic entrainment have revealed a developmental trajectory across the lifespan, showing synchronization improves with age and musical experience. Here, we explore the development and maintenance of synchronization in childhood through older adulthood in a large cohort of participants (N = 145), and also ask how it may be altered by musical experience. We employed a uniform assessment of beat synchronization for all participants and compared performance developmentally and between individuals with and without musical experience. We show that the ability to consistently tap along to a beat improves with age into adulthood, yet in older adulthood tapping performance becomes more variable. Also, from childhood into young adulthood, individuals are able to tap increasingly close to the beat (i.e., asynchronies decline with age), however, this trend reverses from younger into older adulthood. There is a positive association between proportion of life spent playing music and tapping performance, which suggests a link between musical experience and auditory-motor integration. These results are broadly consistent with previous investigations into the development of beat synchronization across the lifespan, and thus complement existing studies and present new insights offered by a different, large cross-sectional sample

On the Impact of UAS Contingencies on ATC Operations in Shared Airspace

In the near future, it is expected that an increasing number of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) will operate at very low level altitudes of up to 500 ft in urban and suburban areas. These new airspace users will have to share the available airspace with manned traffic, and dynamic airspace re-configuration (DAR) has been considered as one of the enablers for the integration of unmanned and manned traffic in non-segregated airspace. The Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre, NLR, together with their partners from the German Aerospace Centre, DLR, carried out simulations for the SESAR Industrial Research Project AURA that investigates requirements for an interface between ATM controlled airspace and so-called U-space. U-space is a set of highly automated services and specific procedures designed to provide safe, efficient and secure access to airspace for large numbers of unmanned aircraft, operating automatically and beyond the visual line of sight. To this end, AURA defined the so-called AUSA, ATM U-space Shared Airspace, which must be seen as a generic type of airspace that can be delegated to contain both ATC controlled and U-space controlled airspace volumes. The simulations carried out by NLR and DLR investigated U-space contingencies that could have an impact on those parts of the shared airspace controlled by ATC. This includes specific U-space user missions and related emergency and other contingency situations that would require an extension of U-space into ATC controlled airspace. NLR defined different drone missions in the vicinity of Rotterdam The Hague Airport on the NARSIM validation platform. A tower controller and an approach controller worked within this environment. DLR operated both a real drone at their National UAS Test Centre in Cochstedt, Germany, and a drone simulator at their premises in Braunschweig in order to carry out the drone missions with high fidelity. For this experiment, the role of a manager for Dynamic Airspace Re-configuration processes was introduced. The DAR Manager received contingency requests from U-space and negotiated them with air traffic control. Both the tower and approach controller communicated with the DAR Manager to find a solution for the contingency situations that occurred during the drone missions. The DAR Manager had the possibility to visualize and change the contingency airspace reconfiguration request and, if several options were available, select the most appropriate reconfiguration option. Airspace changes were then communicated to the affected controllers via a dedicated interface showing the delegated U-space airspace with indications of altitude constraints and activation status and times inside the ATC controlled airspace. Preliminary results have shown that the additional DAR Manager role and working position supported and improved air traffic control operations. Negotiations between the DAR Manager and air traffic controllers, however, will only be possible if there is enough lead time - in the range of several minutes - to prepare for airspace changes. Emergency requests that require immediate action should be communicated to the affected controllers immediately by the system

Dependent measures of tapping performance.

<p>Dependent measures of tapping performance.</p

Musical Experience Categorization Information.

<p>Musical Experience Categorization Information.</p

Beat Synchronization Changes Throughout Life.

<p>(A) The ability to tap to a beat improves with age into middle adulthood (ages 22 to 42.9), and then declines in older age, as assessed by tapping variability. (B) Anticipation of the beat was least accurate for children and older adults, as assessed by asynchrony. Error bars represent one standard error of the mean.</p

Auditory learning through active engagement with sound: biological impact of community music lessons in at-risk children

The young nervous system is primed for sensory learning, facilitating the acquisition of language and communication skills. Social and linguistic impoverishment can limit these learning opportunities, eventually leading to language-related challenges such as poor reading. Music training offers a promising auditory learning strategy by directing attention to meaningful acoustic elements in the soundscape. In light of evidence that music training improves auditory skills and their neural substrates, there are increasing efforts to enact community-based programs to provide music instruction to at-risk children. Harmony Project is a community foundation that has provided free music instruction to over 1,000 children from Los Angeles gang-reduction zones over the past decade. We conducted an independent evaluation of biological effects of participating in Harmony Project by following a cohort of children for one year. Here we focus on a comparison between students who actively engaged with sound through instrumental music training vs. students who took music appreciation classes. All children began with an introductory music appreciation class, but midway through the year half of the children transitioned to an instrumental training class. After the year of training, the children who actively engaged with sound through instrumental music training had faster and more robust neural processing of speech than the children who stayed in the music appreciation class, observed in neural responses to a speech sound /d/. The neurophysiological measures found to be enhanced in the instrumentally trained children have been previously linked to reading ability, suggesting a gain in neural processes important for literacy stemming from active auditory learning. These findings speak to the potential of active engagement with sound (i.e., music-making) to engender experience-dependent neuroplasticity during trand may inform the development of strategies for auditory learning

The Relationship Between Beat Synchronization and Music Experience.

<p>Individuals with musical experience perform better on a tapping task in comparison to individuals without musical experience, as assessed by two measures of tapping performance: (A) variability and (B) asynchrony. Error bars represent one standard error of the mean.</p

Non-Linear Development of Beat Synchronization Throughout Life.

<p>A cubic model fit the data to describe age-related changes in tapping variability, accounting for 42.6% of variance in tapping performance (Y = 85.055 + -5.192*X + .123*X² +-.001*X³).</p