Putting our hands together is easy; we do it often to applaud a great show, and sometimes just out of sheer excitement. Putting our hands together in time to a beat, on the offbeats, in strange syncopated patterns - that can be difficult. But it's fun!
If you are a musician - you might have had the experience of trying to clap along to a blinking light on your metronome. Not so easy is it? This is no accident, as research has shown that people actually tend to be better at clapping along with auditory clicks than visuals. Professor Bruno Repp from Haskins Laboratories has done extensive work on this, and has shown in a not-so-recent paper that even visuals along with auditory information won't help you.
In the case of this video by DJ Paradiddle - there may be something different going on. In order to understand patterns and rhythms, it helps to have a way to structure them that makes sense. If you try to listen to the clapping in this video on its own... it will most likely sound like nonsense (as it did to me), but the visuals help to organize it. At least for me - in this case they help me clap along. What do you think?
