What makes some people more able to time better than others at rhythm games?

[Arch0wl]

This is a question that I've thought about for a long time without a very good answer.

It seems like some people are just inherently able to time better than other people, for whatever reason. I don't know why this is, and can't even begin to figure it out.

Obviously there is some brain mechanism driving this, but I have no idea what that is. My gut says reaction time, but I'm inclined to disbelieve that because there are people with insane reaction times who do not have the godly timing that the top players on these games do.

It would be great if someone more knowledgeable could weigh in on this.

[Yulanik]

I don't think timing has much to do with reaction since after a long period of time the mind no longer has to "react" but instead it becomes something like riding a bike.

IMO, it all boils down to muscle memory. Lots of people can time good because they can have so much muscle memory to be able to coordinate all of these notes perfectly without messing up, that's pretty much the difference. You can't have good timing without muscle memory.

[Poison-]

I don't get it either. There are people who whore this game and aren't elite, and there are those people that can go a long time without playing and still be "elite"

[kaiten123]

according to some documentary on the brain that i watched like 5 years ago and barely remember: the human brain has mechanisms desiged specifically for detecting and following beats and rhythms and such. they even showed some woman who can't understand music in the same way as most people because her brain doesnt detect or interpret rhythm in any meaningful way so everything just sounds like a collection of noises to her. they had a short story about how she always wanted to be a dancer as a kid but no matter how much she practiced and perfected every technique she was always at the bottom of the class because she couldn't understand the rhythm of the music and therefore couldnt match it with her dance.

i imagine this plays a part because as far as i know, good MA players aren't reacting to each individual note as much as they are feeling the rhythm of the song and matching it. (i'm not an MA player so maybe someone can correct me on this?)

[DossarLX ODI]

MA was always impossible for me

What I have is hard song MA. Being able to hit a song already guarantees decent accuracy.

And playing on low speedmods... yeah. The music doesn't do crap for me at all. I play on a higher cmod and I can SDP something, but when I play on 1x and listen to the song and actually play with the song, I can't even get below 150 perfects.

[Frank Munoz]

just cheat~
onsrsnote I'm not really sure,
My timing in general sux ass. or, I guess "rhythm"
I notice this most when I'm using fl trying to make some wicked beats yo' and when i just try to do a constant tempo of eight notes it's always sloppy/jazzy.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by kaiten123

according to some documentary on the brain that i watched like 5 years ago and barely remember: the human brain has mechanisms desiged specifically for detecting and following beats and rhythms and such. they even showed some woman who can't understand music in the same way as most people because her brain doesnt detect or interpret rhythm in any meaningful way so everything just sounds like a collection of noises to her.

The reason I'm skeptical of this being the only explanation is because, well,

people with very good MA are not always the best dancers; in fact, it's usually the opposite. The best DDR freestylers back in the day tended to have bad PA, and people with very good PA had very bad freestyle. There were exceptions, of course -- a few people were great in both -- but dancing ability seems to affect MA not at all.

Perhaps dancing ability is something like that ability + the ability to execute physical movements and the amount of rhythmic ability for dancing isn't as high as the physical ability, while MA is just that ability in isolation.

[xVaLoRx]

whenever i go for an MA score, i really make sure my keytaps have the perfect gap between them. i've quadded two songs with the song muted so music doesn't really help me with accuracy; if anything, it distracts me from doing this. i've been playing drums since i was 8 so i've always had the ability to keep a steady rhythm.

[noname219]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

The reason I'm skeptical of this being the only explanation is because, well,

people with very good MA are not always the best dancers; in fact, it's usually the opposite. The best DDR freestylers back in the day tended to have bad PA, and people with very good PA had very bad freestyle. There were exceptions, of course -- a few people were great in both -- but dancing ability seems to affect MA not at all.

Perhaps dancing ability is something like that ability + the ability to execute physical movements and the amount of rhythmic ability for dancing isn't as high as the physical ability, while MA is just that ability in isolation.

I can compare SM/FFR to any musical instrument. You can spend the rest of your life trying to become the best guitarist in the world. You'll become a great technician sure, but that won't make yourself the best songwriter in the world.

To answer your question, it's probably the same skill involved in learning a new instrument. There are a lot of similarities : you have to learn how to read a sheet music, then hit the right notes at the right time.

[Reincarnate]

Personally, I'd like to see the effect on people's MA when you remove the judgment display.

[Mollocephalus]

i'll try that later

do i even qualify as MA player tho???


EDIT: without judgment to tell you if you're going well enough, it's MUCH harder to keep a consistent MA. Or maybe i should check again my global offset.

[Spenner]

I'd think it has something to do with making an internalized sort of pattern in the brain that projects the pace at which notes are displayed as they appear, and predicts the future notes by having consistency or by being able to anticipate a pattern change as the music changes. I'm sure it's a lot more than that when you combine physical dexterity to it as well though.

I'd think that dancers wouldn't be the best at stepmania necessarily, seeing as musical queues for physical responses are more drawn out and fluid. With drumming of piano it's more immediate rhythmical responses that seem more along the lines of what happens in stepmania.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

The reason I'm skeptical of this being the only explanation is because, well,

people with very good MA are not always the best dancers; in fact, it's usually the opposite. The best DDR freestylers back in the day tended to have bad PA, and people with very good PA had very bad freestyle. There were exceptions, of course -- a few people were great in both -- but dancing ability seems to affect MA not at all.

Perhaps dancing ability is something like that ability + the ability to execute physical movements and the amount of rhythmic ability for dancing isn't as high as the physical ability, while MA is just that ability in isolation.

Can you really make that generalization though? Have you seen any amazing SM players that have tried and practiced dancing and were still bad at it?

HOWEVER, even if this was the case, there's a very simple explanation.


Of course this ability is mostly neurological, but it probably doesn't have a singular localization because SM ability relies on not only motor coordination but also visual pattern recognition.

Therefore I would assume that SM ability is largely determined by the development of 1. the Primary Motor Cortex and 2. the Primary Visual Cortex.

The catch is that it probably does NOT involve the Cerebellum, but the cerebellum is heavily implicated in dancing. The Cerebellum is responsible for the quality and control of a movement but it does NOT plan or initiate a movement. In dancing the quality of a dance revolves around how movements flow and how they aesthetically please through quality of movement, not how mechanically precise the movements are.

That is the job of the motor cortex and is something that is required to play SM at a high level. You need to be able to quickly recognize the pattern and initiate the motor pattern. The quality of the movement however, doesn't really matter; you just need to hit the key/pad.

The primary visual cortex is implicated because it is specifically involved in pattern recognition and processing information about moving objects.


So what's going on in the brains of SM players? Higher neural density in these areas and faster firing rates/higher degrees of myelination. If you were to MRI professional SM players vs casual SM players during a song, you would see much greater activation in the brains of the professional players in these areas most specifically.

Much of this is probably adaptation that was acquired via practice, but the best SM players undoubtedly were naturally gifted in terms of neural density in these areas prior to ever playing the game.


Of course, I'm neglecting entirely auditory queues. Some players rely more than them than others and I wouldn't expect them to be as important as the above (many people can MA songs even when they're completely out of sync), but they would still definitely be important to a degree.

[Mollocephalus]

One question: since top tier ITG players need not only to be accurate and fast, but also to optimize movements, would it mean pad players also need their Cerebellum qualities to excel?

[TC_Halogen]

Reach, your insight on this topic is nothing short of fantastic.

Necros brought up the same thing that I would have; as an ITG player (or rather, a pad player on and off for the past 10 years), what sort of neural advantages might I see as opposed to an exclusive FFR/SM/(keyboard game) player?

It's interesting that some people mention having a lack of judgment causes a decrease in accuracy, considering I typically don't see that effect much. Then again, I also spent a lot of time utilizing trial-and-error with global offsets and sync normalization to ensure that I am playing to my best ability while comparing rhythms visually with how I know they should be spaced audibly (a knowledge of music certainly makes this process autonomous).

One of the things that I wonder about this though -- when I first played FFR/SM, I was 12 years old. When I started this game, I was absolutely god awful -- I mean, just something like Soul Shift (5 out of 99 on the current scale) was difficult for me to pass, let alone combo. Fast forward a few years later (about 15/16) with irregular play and a setup change; there was a noticeable improvement, but moreso due to the comfort in a spread-out setup. I still had issues with reading. A year after that, density no longer seemed to be an issue. I have always attributed this to my active playing of ITG in abnormal scenarios (like 1x/flat on really low BPMs) out of boredom, but how does that type of coordination correlate to the coordination necessary for FFR? Is that theoretically possible in explanation?

Also, is there a possible explanation for as to why certain people experience heavier devolution on extended breaks than others who take extended breaks of the same duration?

This is a very cool topic for me -- I'm not the most intelligent person (which is why I tend to stay out of CT), but it certainly catches my interest in a way that makes me want to get into this kind of discussion.

[Reincarnate]

Higher neural density in these areas and faster firing rates/higher degrees of myelination

Just to substantiate this a bit with another data point: I had a friend back in college who was studying neuro, and when I asked her about this topic way back when, this is precisely the same response she gave (and it's also the only reason I even know what myelin is, haha).

This also shows up in quite a few other skills/games/activities/hobbies/etc.

[Cavernio]

I thought timing was all cerebellum. The purkinje connections in the cerebellum are mind-bogglingly evenly spaced, something that would be absolutely necessary for keeping things even.

My experience is that I'm bad at FFR not because I can't interpret the patterns, (although at an insanely high level of play I can't follow it, but I feel that's because I simply have never played at such extremes often enough, it feels attainable), but various other reasons. One of them is simply that my fingers don't follow instructions. This only becomes an issue when it gets fast. On occasion the muscles will simply tense up too much, but at other times, I fully expect my finger to move, but it doesn't, or it does, but it's way too late or early and I *know* it's off before the finger moves. That is definitely a physical timing issue, and that ultimately requires proper cerebellar timing.
Another thing, I've noted that my left hand is far worse than my right (down and left arrows), and I'm pretty sure that's because I'm not using individual fingers, which are individually innervated, ie: there's 1 signal per finger getting sent to/from your spine and brain, your cortex doesn't have to re-arrange anything. I've played a lot using 2 different forms for my left hand, both of which use my thumb because I actually have a thumb joint (the first one only). The left arrow I've switched from using my index nub (which uses the muscle at the base of your finger) to using the entire left side of my hand with the pinky nub as the part that hits the keys. The latter feels better, probably because I remember training myself to move my nubs individually at different ages in my life, (still don't move the 4th nub very well) but folding my hand in half length-wise is how I've always grasped things, probably since infancy. Anyways, I suspect that the probable lack of individual innervation in my left hand is a large part of the issue, not lack of practice or lack of use.
I compare it to playing with toes in that sense, because your toes can move individually, but they generally don't and they're not each signalled individually. Would it be possible for someone playing with their toes to get as good as the best finger players? It'd be neat to know.

All that said, what keeps me from AAA's on easy peasy FFR songs, and is likely my biggest hold-back, I just don't beat things evenly. I'm very musical, and I like rhythms and can interpret them just fine, but my piano playing has always suffered from keeping an even rhythm, and pretty much all rhythm games have shown me that I'm not good at keeping an even, steady rhythm. Part of this is me thinking I am keeping an even rhythm but the games show I'm not, but other times I'll know that I'm not even because it sounds uneven, but I can't, again, make my fingers be more even. This is especially true when playing the piano, and that is most noticed with my right (normal) hand, when trying to play runs and such.

I'm actually a pretty good dancer, (with practice of course!), when I was younger I had a professional dancer very seriously tell me that I was really, really good. But in the everyday I'm actually pretty clumsy. (I was getting clumsier too, probably the celiac disease.)

Lastly, my celiac disease seems very much the cause of the peripheral neuropathy I'd developed over the past several years (independently of commonly tested vitamin deficiencies), and it's been unquestionably found that celiac patient's immune systems can damage motor neurons from the cerebellum all the way down to the peripheral ones when it gets triggered. Whether or not my neuropathic pain means my motor neurons specifically have suffered is unclear. However, it's possible that if I applied myself to rhythm games NOW that I could overcome some of the short-falls I've noticed.

tl;dr I don't know everyone's individual hang-ups and where they notice they have issues, but certainly for me, it's largely a lack of properly timed control of my out-going movements.

Does anyone feel like their sticking point is in interpreting the arrows? I was accused of not being able to interpret/process the arrows based on my terrible scores, but I guarantee that's not my failing point, not at the level of play I prefer at least.

Another failing point could be in the visual timing of arrows, (I'm probably bad at that too), not necessarily patterns.

[Mollocephalus]

Ah yeah, cavernio brings up yet another issue which has never been covered in this discussion up until now. Scroll speed. Is it really so important? Are some people more naturally inclined to read higher speeds and have faster reaction times?

[clasko1000]

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

Necros brought up the same thing that I would have; as an ITG player (or rather, a pad player on and off for the past 10 years), what sort of neural advantages might I see as opposed to an exclusive FFR/SM/(keyboard game) player?

I guess i dont really understand why someone would question this, while i have thought about it. I dont have any friends that play FFR who "do not" DDR/ITG. It doesn't bring me to a consensus that players have any advantages from playing only one. I think that all rhythm games help you improve no matter what game or style. For example, i just attained my first 2 AAA's in the 60's, I have every song on every DDR game AA'ed(wasnt all that interested in AAA'ing except a few songs), and can do some 11's(+ delirium) in ITG.(I prefer to play toe style, its more fun to me, but i will put my bar on the pad and play heal to do this, however i find it much less enjoyable.

I can tell you that im much better than a couple friends at PA'ing pad songs, even with friends that can play higher difficulty's than me and I notice that i can read songs in ITG outside of my being able to move, so i attribute that to playing FFR.

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

Also, is there a possible explanation for as to why certain people experience heavier devolution on extended breaks than others who take extended breaks of the same duration?

I find that every time i come back to FFR over a break I'm better, i don't know why. I try to play songs every little while, while not focusing on score. I guess that's not really a break, but yea. I do play other rhythm games during my time away so that my contribute my skill. Rockband, DDR/ITG, GH, Technica, Beatmania, This could by why i don't drop.

I know i haven't really answered your questions fully(sorry, i ramble), but i have a theory that some people are just better at games, it has to do with one's intellect. I always hold my little brother in high regards because hes much smarter than myself. He beats me at almost every game we play competitively, but hes not really into rhythm gaming. **This could pose another question, that does rhythm games take intellect, or is it all instinct? I don't know, i feel that im good at games because i have good motor skills.

P.S. A ex at the time bought that Theatrhythm Final Fantasy game and was struggling at medium difficulty. I was like 1-2 NPS for you to tap with your stylist. The whole game = ROFLSTOMP EZ.


EDIT: I though Halogen was the topic starter, i should learn what clicking a link on the right side of the front page does... :/

[Cavernio]

Umm, I brought up scroll speed?
In DDR the really slow scroll speeds screw me up.