Neurobiologic Functions of Rhythm, Time, and Pulse in Music

Clynes, Manfred; Walker, Janice R.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-8917-0_10

Cited by 58 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Overall, analyses ofmemory performance indicate that people are remarkably skilled. For example, when one compares the tempi ofcompositions played over multiple occasions by a given performing group, the degree of variability is extremely low and approximates a value of 0.2% (Clynes & Walker, 1982Collier & Collier, 1994). Nonmusicians displaya similar pattern of results when asked to sing, hum, or whistle popular rockand-roll tunes from memory (Levitin & Cook, 1996).…”

Section: Ettects Of Musical Tempo On Cognitive Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Tempo discrimination of musical patterns: Effects due to pitch and rhythmic structure

Boltz

1998

Perception & Psychophysics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this research was to investigate a set of factors that may influence the perceived rate of an auditory event. In a paired-comparison task, subjects were presented with a set of music-like patterns that differed in their relative number of contour changes and in the magnitude ofpitch skips (Experiment 1) as well as in the compatibility of rhythmic accent structure with the arrangement of pitch relations (Experiment 2). Results indicated that, relative to their standard referents, comparison melodies were judged to unfold more slowly when they displayed more changes in pitch direction, greater pitch distances, and an incompatible rhythmic accent structure. These flndings are suggested to stern from an imputed velocity hypo thesis, in which people overgeneralize certain invariant relations that typically occur between melodic and temporal accent structure within Western music.In the study of event perception, one issue of particular interest is the effects ofan event's spatiotemporal structure on cognitive behavior. Any given event, whether it is a melody, speech utterance, or visual scene, is necessarily dynamic in nature and displays an array ofnontemporal (spatial) information that unfolds with a given rate and rhythmicity over a total time span. In considering how this information is processed by the cognitive system, several studies have examined the effects ofan event's rhythm, relative to the array of nontemporal information, on perception and selective attending skills as well as the subsequent remembering of events (see Fraisse, 1978Fraisse, , 1982. Others have focused on the experienced and remembered duration of an event and on how characteristics ofthe information filling a time span influence both the accuracy and the bias ofjudgments (see Allan, 1979;Block, 1979;Fraisse, 1984Fraisse, , 1987. Surprisingly, however, there is relatively little research in which those factors that influence the perception and remembering oftempo information are investigated. This omission in the literature is particularly puzzling in that the rate of informational flow will directly determine an event's total duration and has been found to alter the perceived rhythm of an event (Clarke, 1982;Handel, 1993;Marshburn & Jones, 1985;Pierson, 1976;Povel, 1977). Hence, tempo is a primary aspect ofan event's structure that covaries with other temporal dimensions and, therefore, merits additional investigation, in order to determine its role in cognitive behavior.The purpose ofthe present research is to investigate a set of variables that may influence the perceived tempo ofmusic-like patterns. One such variable involves the po- tential impact of a melody's rhythm and whether the arrangement of temporal accents, relative to the array of melodic structure, can alter the apparent rate of a tune. With the second set offactors, the role ofpitch information and how the overall contour of pitch intervals (i.e., the ups and downs ofpitch), as well as the magnitude of pitch skips, mayaiso exert a significant impact on behav...

show abstract

Section: Ettects Of Musical Tempo On Cognitive Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Tempo discrimination of musical patterns: Effects due to pitch and rhythmic structure

Boltz

1998

Perception & Psychophysics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nonetheless, BPM measurements are often regarded as a reasonably transparent measure of musical speed (Jones & Boltz, 1989;Moelants 2006;Parncutt, 1994;Quinn & Watt, 2006;van Noorden & Moelants, 1999), as are tapping behaviors yoked to the beat or pulse rate (Clynes & Walker, 1982;Drake, Penel & Bigand, 2000;Martens, 2005;McKinney & Moelants, 2006;Snyder & Krumhansl, 2001). Yet a number of authors have noted that beat rate and/or tapping rate can be dissociated from perceived tempo (Epstein, 1979(Epstein, , 1995Drake, Gros & Penel, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tactus ≠ Tempo: Some Dissociations Between Attentional Focus, Motor Behavior, and Tempo Judgment

London¹

2011

Empirical Musicology Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Three experiments explored the relationships between surface rhythmic activity, tactus or beat rate, attentional focus, sensorimotor synchronization (tapping), and tempo perception. All involved a rhythmic standard followed by a comparison; the experimental task was a judgment of "slower, same, or faster." In Experiment 1 participants simply judged relative speed; they focused on the beat level in Experiment 2, and they tapped along as they made their judgments in Experiment 3. In all three experiments judgments were highly accurate (89-97% correct, relative to beat-level inter-onset interval) when the standard-comparison involved the same pattern/same tempo, and performed similarly for the same pattern at different tempos (80-83% correct). Performance degraded significantly in other contexts, especially for different patterns at the same tempo. A main effect for pattern (two levels: same vs. different) and a pattern x tempo interaction were observed in all three experiments; a main effect for tempo (collapsed to two levels: same vs. different) occurred only in Experiment 1. Analysis of a subset of the experimental conditions indicated that surface activity was of greater salience than the beat level in some contexts. Tapping along (Experiment 3) did not improve overall performance any more than simply focusing on the tactus level (Experiment 2), and a possible biasing effect of tapping rate on tempo judgment was observed. Thus there is an apparent dissociation between tactus rate, attentional focus, tapping behavior and tempo judgment. This suggests that our perception of musical speed or tempo is more than simple apprehension of the tactus rate.

show abstract

“…apart (Clynes & Walker, 1982Collier & Collier, 1994). Adults untrained in music can also reproduce the tempo of familiar tunes by singing both highly veridically, as compared to the original recording (Levitin & Cook, 1996), and highly consistently across time (Bailes & Barwick, 2011;Bergeson & Trehub, 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clynes and Walker (1982) asked professional musicians to perform, imagine, and conduct while imagining the same piece of music. They found that the duration of the conducted version of the piece was generally closer to the duration of a musician's actual performance than the duration of the purely imagined version.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing imagined tempo for music: Effects of motor engagement and musical experience

Jakubowski

Farrugia

2016

Psychology of Music

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Both musically trained and untrained adults can reproduce the tempo of familiar music with high precision. However, conflicting evidence exists as to how well representations of tempo are preserved within musical imagery. The present study investigated whether previous conflicting evidence might result from the use of different tasks to measure imagined tempo. Tempo judgments for familiar music were collected in a repeated-measures design using two imagined music tasks and one perceived music task. In one imagined music task participants tapped in time to the beat of the imagined music (Imagery (motor) task), while in the other they did not move in time with the music and instead adjusted a click track to the beat (Imagery (non-motor) task). Overall, performance was most accurate on the perceived music task, in which all musical cues were present. Performance on the Imagery (motor) task was also significantly more accurate than performance on the Imagery (non-motor) task. Training and active engagement with music positively predicted imagery task performance, whereas perceived music task performance was influenced by properties related to the song stimuli, such as familiarity and the original, recorded tempo. Results are discussed in relation to previous literature on auditory-motor interactions and musical expertise.

show abstract

Neurobiologic Functions of Rhythm, Time, and Pulse in Music

Cited by 58 publications

References 19 publications

Tempo discrimination of musical patterns: Effects due to pitch and rhythmic structure

Tempo discrimination of musical patterns: Effects due to pitch and rhythmic structure

Tactus ≠ Tempo: Some Dissociations Between Attentional Focus, Motor Behavior, and Tempo Judgment

Probing imagined tempo for music: Effects of motor engagement and musical experience

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About