Our eyes blink subconsciously in time with musical rhythms. The authors of a new study say the finding adds to understanding of how humans process rhythm, leading to new ways to detect neurological conditions that cause timing and movement deficiencies.

Tapping our feet and nodding our head in synch with music are examples of what researchers call auditory-motor synchronisation.

To better understand the phenomenon, psychologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong gave 123 adults aged 18 to 34 a series of tasks. They used camera-based eye-tracking and an electroencephalogram cap to capture participants’ eye blinks and brain activity as they listened to music by Bach.

Based on previous research, the researchers expected participants’ brainwaves to synchronise with the rhythms (Doelling and Poeppel, 2015). They were surprised to discover this was also true for eye blinks (Wu et al, 2025).

Participants also blinked in time when the music was played backwards, suggesting they were not responding to familiar musical cues.