Our bodies often move to music without a second thought—tapping a foot, nodding a head, or swaying gently with the rhythm. But new research reveals an even more delicate form of musical synchronization, one so subtle that we are entirely unaware of it: our eyes blink in time with the beat.
A study published in PLOS Biology on November 18 shows that spontaneous eye blinks naturally align with musical rhythms, offering striking evidence of how deeply intertwined our auditory and motor systems truly are.
Led by Dr. DU Yi of the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. TENG Xiangbin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the work highlights the brain’s internal timing mechanisms and uncovers a hidden connection between listening and movement.
Across four experiments involving 123 young adults with no musical training, participants listened to rhythmically steady Bach chorales. As they listened, their spontaneous blinks repeatedly fell in step with the beat.
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Remarkably, this synchronization held even when all melodic content was stripped away, leaving only the temporal pulse of the music. EEG recordings revealed that blink timing closely mirrored neural activity associated with beat tracking.
“People’s spontaneous eye blinks fall in step with the musical beat—even without being instructed to move—unveiling a hidden link between music processing and the oculomotor system,” explained Dr. DU.
The effect, however, wasn’t automatic. When participants’ attention was pulled away by a competing visual task, the blink–beat alignment vanished. This suggests that active listening—rather than reflex—is essential for the phenomenon to occur. Individuals whose blinks synced most strongly with the rhythm also showed sharper ability to detect pitch deviations that occurred on the beat.
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To probe deeper, the researchers examined brain structure using diffusion MRI. They found that variations in the microstructure of the left posterior superior longitudinal fasciculus—a key white-matter pathway linking auditory regions with frontoparietal networks—were strongly tied to individual differences in synchronization strength.
“What surprised us most was how reliably a small movement like blinking locks to the beat,” said Dr. DU. “Because blinks are effortless to measure, this behavior offers a simple, implicit window into how we process rhythm and could even become a tool for identifying rhythm-related difficulties.”
Beyond revealing an unexpected way music shapes our unconscious behavior, the findings open new possibilities for understanding how rhythm perception develops and how it may differ in individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions.
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The research was supported by the STI 2030–Major Projects Funding Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.
