Ensemble hand-clapping experiments under the influence of delay and various acoustic environments

Hand-clapping experiments were performed by pairs of subjects under the influence of a delay up to 68 ms in various acoustic environments. The mean tempo decreased close to linearly as function of the delay. During each sequence the tempo slowed down to a degree that increased with the delay but for delays shorter than about 15-23 ms, the tempo increased during the sequence. For the timing imprecision, and for the subjects' judgements of their own ensemble performance, no effect of the delay could be observed up to 20 ms. Above 32 ms the effects were observed to increase with the delay. Virtual anechoic conditions lead to a higher imprecision than the reverberant conditions, and real-reverberation conditions lead to a slightly lower tempo.