Adults With Dyslexia Use Internalised Beat Cues Less Than Controls When Estimating Interval Length

Difficulties in both duration and beat-based time perception are common in individuals with dyslexia (DD). It is also known that internalised beat cues may aid in duration processing. This study investigated whether the difficulties in duration processing among DD stem from their inability to utilise internal beat cues. Participants with and without dyslexia estimated intervals ranging from 500 ms to 10 s. In the beat cue condition, participants listened to a sequence of 500 ms beats before the interval, and in the no beat cue condition, they were exposed to silence while EEG was recorded. Interestingly, the two groups did not differ in duration estimation performance, but they did differ in their utilisation of beat cues, with DD showing less sensitivity to these, whether the impact was negative (cues before shorter intervals) or positive (before longer intervals). Brainwave entrainment to the target frequency was significantly higher compared with entrainment to a non-target frequency, and cross-group differences were null. Our findings suggest that DD may have difficulties either in retaining the beat when it is no longer audible, or in using the internalised beat for duration estimation. Nevertheless, they can achieve comparable accuracy to neurotypical adults, possibly through compensatory strategies.