Despite the long history of music psychology, rhythm similarity perception remains largely unexplored. Several studies suggest that edit-distance—the minimum number of notational changes required to transform one rhythm into another—predicts similarity judgments. However, the ecological validity of edit-distance remains elusive. We investigated whether the edit-distance model can predict perceptual similarity between rhythms that also differed in a fundamental characteristic of music—tempo. Eighteen participants rated the similarity between a series of rhythms presented in a pairwise fashion. The edit-distance of these rhythms varied from 1 to 4, and tempo was set at either 90 or 150 beats per minute (BPM). A test of congruence among distance matrices (CADM) indicated significant inter-participant reliability of ratings, and non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) visualized that the ratings were clustered based upon both tempo and whether rhythms shared an identical onset pattern, a novel effect we termed rhythm primacy. Finally, Mantel tests revealed significant correlations of edit-distance with similarity ratings on both within- and between-tempo rhythms. Our findings corroborated that the edit-distance predicts rhythm similarity and demonstrated that the edit-distance accounts for similarity of rhythms that are markedly different in tempo. This suggests that rhythmic gestalt is invariant to differences in tempo.
Despite the long history of music psychology, rhythm similarity perception remains largely unexplored. Several existing studies suggest that the edit-distance model—which is based on the number of notational changes required to transform one rhythm into another—can predict rhythm similarity judgements. Nevertheless, edit-distance has not been evaluated in the presence of other musical factors such as rhythms that also differ in tempo. Here, eighteen participants rated the degree of similarity of a series of pair-wise rhythm phrases in which edit-distance was varied from 1 to 4, and tempo was set at either 90 or 150 beats per minute. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) revealed that rhythm similarity ratings were clustered based upon either tempo or the identical onset pattern (i.e., primacy), but not based on edit-distance. Linear mixed effects modeling further confirmed the nMDS visualizations by yielding main effects of tempo and primacy. It also revealed interactions between edit-distance, tempo, and primacy, thus partially supporting edit-distance. That is, edit-distance predicted rhythm similarity only when tempo or primacy were controlled. Together, our findings suggest that the effects of tempo and primacy outweigh that of edit-distance, prompting a revision of theories regarding human percept of rhythm similarity.
Despite the long history of music psychology, rhythm similarity perception remains largely unexplored. Several existing studies suggest that the edit-distance model—which is based on the number of notational changes required to transform one rhythm into another—can predict rhythm similarity judgements. Nevertheless, edit-distance has not been evaluated in the presence of other musical factors such as rhythms that also differ in tempo. Here, eighteen participants rated the degree of similarity of a series of pair-wise rhythm phrases in which edit-distance was varied from 1 to 4, and tempo was set at either 90 or 150 beats per minute. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) revealed that rhythm similarity ratings were clustered based upon either tempo or the identical onset pattern (i.e., primacy), but not based on edit-distance. Linear mixed effects modeling further confirmed the nMDS visualizations by yielding main effects of tempo and primacy. It also revealed interactions between edit-distance, tempo, and primacy, thus partially supporting edit-distance. That is, edit-distance predicted rhythm similarity only when tempo or primacy were controlled. Together, our findings suggest that the effects of tempo and primacy outweigh that of edit-distance, prompting a revision of theories regarding human percept of rhythm similarity.
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