Journal of Sports and Motor Development and Learning

Scientific Journal

Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under CC BY-NC 4.0 license

Authors

¹ Department of Motor Behavior and sport psychology, Faculty of Sport Sciences , Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

² Department of Motor Behavior and sport psychology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

³ Department of Sports physiology, Faculty of Sport Sciences , Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22059/jsmdl.2025.378431.1786

Abstract

.
Introduction: The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of training with different musical rhythms on bimanual movement coupling.
Methods: The participants were 48 students aged 15 to 17 years, randomly divided into three groups of 16 each. In the pre-test, they performed four bimanual tasks of varying difficulty, including circle-line drawing. During the training phase, only one task was practiced: drawing a circle with the right hand and a horizontal line with the left hand. Three training sessions were conducted, each consisting of 4 blocks of 10 trials lasting 30 seconds. During training, the first group listened to music with a tempo of 120 beats per minute (BPM), the second group listened to music at 90 BPM, and the third group trained without music (control group). Participants completed an immediate post-test, followed by retention and transfer tests 48 hours later. Statistical analysis was performed using mixed ANOVA and repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS at a significance level of 0.05.
Results: The results showed that training with music improved performance in the spatial pattern of the bimanual circle-line drawing task during the simple and moderate transfer and retention tests. However, in the difficult transfer test, training—especially with high-tempo music (120 BPM)—led to a decline in performance. Specifically, a decrease in the temporal pattern (i.e., number of circle-line cycles) was observed, indicating negative transfer.
Conclusion: Overall, after training, strong bimanual coupling did not occur, possibly due to the simplicity of the task. Temporal coupling was found to be stronger than spatial coupling. Moreover, higher music tempo was associated with greater bimanual coupling.

Keywords

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Journal of Sports and Motor Development and Learning

Volume 17, Issue 2
July 2025
Pages 101-121

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Receive Date: 23 June 2024
Revise Date: 18 November 2024
Accept Date: 06 January 2025

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