To shed light on how humans can learn to understand music, we need to discover what the perceptual capabilities with which infants are born. Beat induction, the detection of a regular pulse in an auditory signal, is considered a fundamental human trait that, arguably, played a decisive role in the origin of music. Theorists are divided on the issue whether this ability is innate or learned. We show that newborn infants develop expectation for the onset of rhythmic cycles (the downbeat), even when it is not marked by stress or other distinguishing spectral features. Omitting the downbeat elicits brain activity associated with violating sensory expectations. Thus, our results strongly support the view that beat perception is innate.event-related brain potentials (ERP) ͉ neonates ͉ rhythm

Probing attentive and preattentive emergent meter in adult listeners without extensive music training Ladinig, O.; Honing, H.J.; Háden, G.P.; Winkler, I. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. BEAT AND METER INDUCTION ARE CONSIDERED important structuring mechanisms underlying the perception of rhythm. Meter comprises two or more levels of hierarchically ordered regular beats with different periodicities. When listening to music, adult listeners weight events within a measure in a hierarchical manner. We tested if listeners without advanced music training form such hierarchical representations for a rhythmical sound sequence under different attention conditions (Attend, Unattend, and Passive). Participants detected occasional weakly and strongly syncopated rhythmic patterns within the context of a strictly metrical rhythmical sound sequence. Detection performance was better and faster when syncopation occurred in a metrically strong as compared to a metrically weaker position. Compatible electrophysiological differences (earlier and higher-amplitude MMN responses) were obtained when participants did not attend the rhythmical sound sequences. These data indicate that hierarchical representations for rhythmical sound sequences are formed preattentively in the human auditory system.

We examined liking for excerpts of unfamiliar music taken from a wide variety of genres. The excerpts varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Listeners provided liking ratings for each excerpt as well as ratings of their emotional responses (intensity, happiness, and sadness). We also measured personality and history of music lessons. In general, listeners tended to like music associated with stronger feelings and happy feelings, and to dislike music that evoked sad feelings. Mixed happy and sad feelings were evoked hy music with inconsistent cues to happiness and sadness. Listeners who scored high on Agreeableness had more intense emotional responses to music in general, whereas stronger sad feelings were evoked among those who scored high on Agreeableness or Neuroticism. Listeners who liked music that made them feel sad tended to score high on Openness-to-Experience or low on Extraversion, whereas liking for music that evoked mixed feelings was associated positively with music training. The results confirm that liking for music varies as a function of the emotions it evokes and individual differences in personality and music training.

While the discussion on the integrity of data obtained from Webdelivered experiments is mainly about issues of method and control (Mehler, 1999;McGraw et al., 2000;Auditory, 2007), this comment stresses the potential that Webbased experiments might have for studies in music perception. It is argued that, due to some important advances in technology, Web-based experiments have become a reliable source for empirical research. Next to becoming a serious alternative to a certain class of lab-based experiments, Web-based experiments can potentially reach a much larger, more varied and intrinsically motivated participant pool. Nevertheless, an important challenge to Web-based experiments is to control for attention and to make sure that participants act as instructed; Interestingly, this is not essentially different from experiments that are performed in the laboratory. Some practical solutions to this challenge are proposed.