Review of "Perception and production of linguistic and musical rhythm by Korean and English middle school students" by Lydia N. Slobodian

Abstract

Interest in possible cultural influences on basic rhythm perception and production has been growing, and the paper by Slobodian (2008) fits squarely in this trend, studying rhythm perception and production in a large number English and Korean native speakers. The findings were interpreted in terms of cross-cultural similarity, suggesting that preferences, e.g. for binary meter, are broadly shared across cultures. As is commonly encountered in cross-cultural research, however, there were several difficulties in offering a clear interpretation of the results, such as the large extent of Western music enculturation of the Korean participants. This commentary will review Slobodian's findings, offering an alternative interpretation of one result, suggesting there may be a cultural difference in meter perception. It will also review other relevant research and integrate lessons learned from a recent study of rhythm perception in Korean, American and Japanese listeners. Throughout, it aims to offer suggestions of how to improve the chances of reaching the ultimate goal of understanding what aspect of culture shapes rhythm perception and production, and the mechanisms by which they do so. KEYWORDS: rhythm, meter, language, cross-cultural methodologyIN a creative and ambitious study in this issue (Slobodian, 2008), Korean and English speakers were tested with a battery of rhythm perception and production tasks, covering both speech and musical rhythm, in order to determine if culture plays a role in shaping such behaviors. Several tendencies (toward binary meters and reproducing rhythms using small integer duration ratios) have been found in prior work (and are summarized by Slobodian), but their universality is a matter of debate, for there is evidence that they might depend on culture (Hannon and Trehub, 2005;Sadakata, et al., 2004;Ohgushi, 2006), but also that there might exist predispositions for duple meter (Bergeson and Trehub, 2006). The present work seeks to expand the range of this question to include Korean.Two culture-dependent areas of experience are typically proposed to account for differences in rhythmic perception and production: language and music. (The alternative, genetic difference, is infrequently proposed.) Slobodian follows this trend, citing studies by Patel, Huron and colleagues, that show the rhythm of a language (as measured by a simple metric) is reflected in the rhythms of composed concert music. This earlier research suggests the existence of links between language and music rhythm, but examines the rather rarefied domain of historical composition in looking for such expression. The search for the substance of such links is generally conducted using behavioral studies in the field or lab. The current research thus falls within two traditions: the comparison of language and musical rhythm using simple metrics, and the drive to test if results in music cognition hold cross-culturally, as a way to understand to what extent they may be universal versus learned (e.g. Grabe and Low, 200...