Recognizing one's own clapping: the role of temporal cues

Do individuals recognize their own clapping? We investigated this question with an off-line paradigm in which the perception of the claps is temporally separated from their generation. In a first experiment, we demonstrated that acoustic recordings of clapping provide sufficient information for discriminating between one's own performance and that of another participant. Self-recognition was still preserved when the claps were reproduced by uniform tones that only retained their temporal pattern. In a subsequent experiment, we verified that the general tempo provides an important cue for self-recognition. Finally, we showed that self-recognition does not rely on concurrent synchronization of actual movements with the auditory sequences. The results are discussed in the light of current theories about perception-action links.