Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Study on Intelligence and Rhythmic timing

I use the Interactive Metronome program in my practice as an OT, which helps with general processing abilities and has an uncanny effect on reading and math as well as visual-motor skills and motor coordination. In the most recent provider newsletter, this article summarizing research on intellect and timing was very interesting:

(quote)"Intelligence and Rhythmic Timing Go Hand In Hand:
People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning...

Researchers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet and Umea University have now demonstrated a correlation between general intelligence and the ability to tap out a simple regular rhythm. They stress that the task subjects performed had nothing to do with any musical rhythmic sense but simply measured the capacity for rhythmic accuracy. Those who scored highest on intelligence tests also had least variation in the regular rhythm they tapped out in the experiment.

"It's interesting as the task didn't involve any kind of problem solving," says Fredrik Ullen at Karolinska Institutet, who led the study with Guy Madison at Umea University. "Irregularity of timing probably arises at a more fundamental biological level owing to a kind of noise in brain activity."

According to Fredrik Ullen, the results suggest that the rhythmic accuracy in brain activity observable when the person just maintains a steady beat is also important to the problem-solving capacity that is measured with intelligence tests.

"We know that accuracy at millisecond level in neuronal activity is critical to information processing and learning processes," he says.

They also demonstrated a correlation between high intelligence, a good ability to keep time, and a high volume of white matter in the parts of the brain's frontal lobes involved in problem solving, planning and managing time.

"All in all, this suggests that a factor of what we call intelligence has a biological basis in the number of nerve fibres in the prefrontal lobe and the stability of neuronal activity that this provides," says Fredrik Ullen.

Publication: 'Intelligence and variability in a simple timing task share neural substrates in the prefrontal white matter', Fredrik Ullen, Lea Forsman, Orjan Blom, Anke Karabanov and Guy Madison, The Journal of Neuroscience, 16 April 2008." (end quote)


I've not seen the actual research article yet but am eager to read it in its entirety. Thought some of you might be interested in this info, too.

Thanks. I am sure I would find the article interesting. We haven't seen my son's OT for help with his vestibular and proprioceptive issues in a couple of months due to problems with our insurance. The OT never had him do Interactive Metronome. She had him working on swings so we put up a tire swing at home. She said to keep him walking as much as possible because hypotonia and low endurance is still a problem.

I know that one of my son's G/T friends who is 4 yrs older and in public school is much better at Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution than my son. My son, with practice, is okay at the beginner levels, but has difficulty moving any higher, but I think he does well for someone with motor dyspraxia. I know that my son read a lot earlier than his friend and my son uses a lot higher level vocabulary in his speech than his older friend and is also more creative in his use of words. My son is better and faster at coming up with funny verbal quips and puns. Whatever part of my son's brain is processing vocabulary, comprehension, and reading and verbal creativity must be working very well, even though my 2E son's visual motor skills and coordination are not as good as his friend's. My son also picks up math concepts very quickly.

My son's very athletic cousins who walked early and seem gifted physically would probably do well with timing. One of them is the high school quarterback, another plays piano, but they don't seem gifted intellectually even though they are bright.

The OT thought my son still might have a slight problem with visual processing and this might have something to do with his slowness in doing jigsaw puzzles, so I have him do geography jigsaw puzzles a few times a week even though he complains that it is summer break and he doesn't want to do them. I also keep him in piano lessons through the summer even though his cousin gets to take a break and my son thinks this is unfair. I keep telling him he is working on forming new neural pathways and he argues that his disability is part of what makes him unique and that I should quit trying to change him.

I have been trying to talk him into taking private dance lessons as a fun way to work on coordination and he doesn't think this sounds fun at all.

He is still very skeptical about being able to create new neural pathways by doing things that he doesn't want to do and I can't find any good articles on that. If you happen to see an article like that I would certainly love to see it.

Wouldn't this principle be the same as someone recovering from a brain injury or stroke? OT is used to build new neural pathways to recover what was lost due to the injury. Or even people who have had part of their brain removed due to cancer; the younger the patient, the more likely the child can relearn things lost from surgery.

Or what about learning in general? Each new thing learned builds a new neural pathway to store the memory, and how to get it back.

We have seen articles about brain plasticity that say this plasticity continues even for adults. We saw something, I think on the science channel, about a woman who had a stroke and in some ways she got better and it was like the other side of her brain took over, but she was not the same person she was before the stroke and her abilities had changed.

I think he might have more trouble than the average person believing in the possibility of creating new neural pathways because his once very smart grandmother who lives next door to us came out of minor surgery 6 years ago with large parts of her memory wiped out and with only about 30 seconds of short term memory. We couldn't see any evidence of brain plasticity or growing new neural pathways, as she only continues to get worse. My uncle, who also lives near us, had a stroke and some things got better, but others did not.

I think from my son's perspective, it must seem like he has to do a lot of work for a very small chance that things might improve. He wonders why he didn't grow these new neural pathways with piano lessons and dance and other things that he tried already. He told his dad that he thought he could do just about anything his friends could do physically but he would be just a little slower and he wouldn't be able to do it as long and he is okay with that. He says his disability doesn't really cause any problems in the things he wants to do, since he was never that interested in sports, so it is really hard to convince him to do some of the things I want him to do, especially when all of his public schooled friends are on summer break.

The statement was made:

a correlation between general intelligence and the ability to tap out a simple regular rhythm. They stress that the task subjects performed had nothing to do with any musical rhythmic sense but simply measured the capacity for rhythmic accuracy.

But I am not sure that there is a difference between musical rhythmic sense and rhythmic accuracy. To me it is a matter of semantics.

There is a public school here, set up as a charter school: The Special Music School. They are set up inconjunction with a private music & dance school attached to Lincoln Center. They have strict admissions, no IQ test, but they see each child and determine whether they have a natural sense of rhythm. Only 15 kids in the class. They have the best scores in the city, better than the gifted schools.

Ren

Both my dds take piano lessons. My oldest dd is very good technically (rhythmic accuracy) and her teacher raves about how quickly she progresses, but she has no musical rhythmic sense. She does not feel the music. She doesn't even enjoy music, but she like the intellectual challenge of learning to play the piano. My youngest dd has great musical rhythmic sense and even her beginner songs sound like music. I guess you could compare it to the difference between a computer playing a song versus a concert pianist playing the same song. The first would be more rhythmically accurate while the second would have more rhythmic sense. I suspect that most good musicians possess both.

This is very interesting, Debbie. My DH, who is very gifted (EG or PG), has no sense of rhythmic timing or any musical ability. My DS has inherited my DH's tone deafness, but excels in piano. He loves the mathematical aspect of it and learned to sight read quickly. I think he is much better at rhythm than his dear old dad. He couldn't be worse!!!!

It seems like it is a case of pattern recognition to me? I guess they are saying that not only can people hear the pattern accurately, they can also reproduce it accurately. And that is where there supposition that neural noise in the brain leads to lower IQ comes from? Neural noise would then lead to pattern distortion. Although the brain is such an amazingly complex organ (with different area wired for language, math, music,etc.), I wonder how anyone can correlate this?

As a related note, I wonder if this could tie into the argument that video games make people "smarter". (I'm not a fan of video games personally, so there is a very loud smirk from me as well!) But it might be relevant to the above reference that "intelligence has a biological basis in the number of nerve fibers in the prefrontal lobe." It seems like it would have the same criteria... that neural noise would lead to less accurate blasting of Asteroids.

Pattern recognition. That is what my son's piano teacher says he is good at and why she said he could get by with very little practice the first several years of piano lessons. I was also wondering if pattern recognition more than rhythmic timing is a better indication of intelligence.

Interactive Metronome uses a steady metronome beat and the timing is measured in ms before or after the beat as you tap out the beat with either hand, foot or combination hand/foot. It is not a pattern of rhythm but rather a constant steady beat. I think this is what the study referred to was assessing. I don't believe they were referring to keeping a musical beat with varying timing and length beat, rests, etc.

When I use IM training I see improvements in general processing skills including areas of motor coordination, visual motor integration, listening and auditory figure-ground skills, ability to follow verbal directions and improvements in reading comprehension and even math skills (often from better spatial processing). I'm assuming that the IM newsletter referenced this study as it supports the idea that improving basic timing ability might be able to boost intellectual processing.

I've had several very intelligent people who also have dyspraxia or similar difficulties do the IM training with me. They have all commented that they felt "more organized" and that they were better able to multi-task and process information better in the ways that were previously more difficult (ie: someone who needed things visually could now process auditory info better).

Debbie,
I do find all this interesting, thanks for posting. You may find this interesting....
My oldest has some coordination issues. It's one of those things that she would probably qualify for PT and/or OT. I agree with the pediatrician when he said in more mild cases you have to consider is it impacting quality of life also. She is a very good compensator, so we just kept an eye out. Now, at eight, she can't tie her shoes or ride a bike. If you watch her attempt the bike, her balance issue is very noticeable. Okay, we thought, maybe we should make the appointment for eval.
Well, by the time I called ( the scrip was from Jan!) there was a waiting list.
Well, I also put the girls in swim team even though they couldn't swim yet! The first week of swim practice, I was watching eldest and you could just see, something was amiss. When they were trying to teach her backstroke it just looked very awkward. It's very hard to explain without having seen it, but she almost looked like she had cerebal palsy. On her right side she could not reach her arm over her head no matter how hard she tried. Left hand, up and over, right hand halway up, to the side and back down. Let me tell you, she was concentrating and trying very hard. Well it ocurred to me that I should probably follow up and see what was going on with that waiting list. While we were waiting, sometime in the second month of everyday practice, the issue seemed to resolve itself. If you watch a swim meet, the kids' bodies move in that constant steady, rythmic beat you are describing. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe, stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Over and over for an hour every day for 2 months. I have been wondering if that caused her to integrate somthing that was affecting her coordination. I would love to see if this helps her with the bike, but she has fallen so many times, she's still afraid to try. So she still can't ride a bike, but, she can swim! Great! Anyway, some anecdotal evidence for you.