Constraints on infants’ musical rhythm perception: effects of interval ratio complexity and enculturation

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Hannon ◽  
Gaye Soley ◽  
Rachel S. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Interval Ratio

Deficits in musical rhythm perception in children with specific learning disabilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Vasudha Hande ◽  
Shantala Hegde
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Learning Disability ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Specific Learning Disability ◽  
Specific Learning Disabilities ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Specific Learning

BACKGROUND: A specific learning disability comes with a cluster of deficits in the neurocognitive domain. Phonological processing deficits have been the core of different types of specific learning disabilities. In addition to difficulties in phonological processing and cognitive deficits, children with specific learning disability (SLD) are known to also found have deficits in more innate non-language-based skills like musical rhythm processing. OBJECTIVES: This paper reviews studies in the area of musical rhythm perception in children with SLD. An attempt was made to throw light on beneficial effects of music and rhythm-based intervention and their underlying mechanism. METHODS: A hypothesis-driven review of research in the domain of rhythm deficits and rhythm-based intervention in children with SLD was carried out. RESULTS: A summary of the reviewed literature highlights that music and language processing have shared neural underpinnings. Children with SLD in addition to difficulties in language processing and other neurocognitive deficits are known to have deficits in music and rhythm perception. This is explained in the background of deficits in auditory skills, perceptuo-motor skills and timing skills. Attempt has been made in the field to understand the effect of music training on the children’s auditory processing and language development. Music and rhythm-based intervention emerges as a powerful intervention method to target language processing and other neurocognitive functions. Future studies in this direction are highly underscored. CONCLUSIONS: Suggestions for future research on music-based interventions have been discussed.

scholarly journals Perception of Rhythmic Similarity is Asymmetrical, and Is Influenced by Musical Training, Expressive Performance, and Musical Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Cameron ◽  
Keith Potter ◽  
Geraint Wiggins ◽  
Marcus Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Expressive Performance ◽  
Similarity Ratings ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
Musical Context ◽  
Exact Timing

Rhythm is an essential part of the structure, behaviour, and aesthetics of music. However, the cognitive processing that underlies the perception of musical rhythm is not fully understood. In this study, we tested whether rhythm perception is influenced by three factors: musical training, the presence of expressive performance cues in human-performed music, and the broader musical context. We compared musicians and nonmusicians’ similarity ratings for pairs of rhythms taken from Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. The rhythms were heard both in isolation and in musical context and both with and without expressive performance cues. The results revealed that rhythm perception is influenced by the experimental conditions: rhythms heard in musical context were rated as less similar than those heard in isolation; musicians’ ratings were unaffected by expressive performance, but nonmusicians rated expressively performed rhythms as less similar than those with exact timing; and expressively-performed rhythms were rated as less similar compared to rhythms with exact timing when heard in isolation but not when heard in musical context. The results also showed asymmetrical perception: the order in which two rhythms were heard influenced their perceived similarity. Analyses suggest that this asymmetry was driven by the internal coherence of rhythms, as measured by normalized Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI). As predicted, rhythms were perceived as less similar when the first rhythm in a pair had greater coherence (lower nPVI) than the second rhythm, compared to when the rhythms were heard in the opposite order.

scholarly journals Individual differences in neural entrainment to rhythm predict spoken grammar skills in six-year-old children

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Persici ◽  
Scott D. Blain ◽  
John Rehner Iversen ◽  
Alexandra P. Key ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Hierarchical Processing ◽  
Behavioral Rhythm ◽  
Grammatical Skills ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Complex Structural ◽  
Evoked Activity

Individual differences in rhythm perception skills play an important role in predicting individual differences in spoken grammar abilities, arguably because both meter and language are hierarchically-organized structures. Based on the idea that neural entrainment sustains attentional fluctuations that facilitate hierarchical processing in both domains, we hypothesized that individual differences in syntactic (grammatical) skills may be predicted by patterns of neural entrainment to musical rhythm. To test this hypothesis, we recorded neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while children (N = 25) listened passively to rhythmic patterns that differed in placement of the beat, using a paradigm that had previously shown to modulate beta and gamma band responses in adults. Analysis of evoked activity in these frequency bands showed that individual differences in the magnitude of neural responses to rhythm predicted variance in six-year-olds’ spoken expressive grammar abilities, over and above the contribution of their behavioral rhythm perception task performance. Variance in the EEG beta and gamma during rhythmic listening was predictive of children’s performance on items with complex structural dependencies, i.e., for which more refined grammatical abilities are required. These results reinforce the idea that mechanisms of neural entrainment to the beat may be a shared neural resource supporting hierarchical processing across music and language, and suggest a relevant brain marker of the relationship between rhythm processing and grammar abilities in elementary-school-age children, previously observed only behaviorally. These findings add to the literature on individual differences in music ability as predictors of child language and academic development.

scholarly journals Processing of Rhythm in Speech and Music in Adult Dyslexia

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Natalie Boll-Avetisyan ◽  
Anjali Bhatara ◽  
Barbara Höhle
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Reading Deficits ◽  
Adult Dyslexia ◽  
Rhythm Pattern

Recent studies have suggested that musical rhythm perception ability can affect the phonological system. The most prevalent causal account for developmental dyslexia is the phonological deficit hypothesis. As rhythm is a subpart of phonology, we hypothesized that reading deficits in dyslexia are associated with rhythm processing in speech and in music. In a rhythmic grouping task, adults with diagnosed dyslexia and age-matched controls listened to speech streams with syllables alternating in intensity, duration, or neither, and indicated whether they perceived a strong-weak or weak-strong rhythm pattern. Additionally, their reading and musical rhythm abilities were measured. Results showed that adults with dyslexia had lower musical rhythm abilities than adults without dyslexia. Moreover, lower musical rhythm ability was associated with lower reading ability in dyslexia. However, speech grouping by adults with dyslexia was not impaired when musical rhythm perception ability was controlled: like adults without dyslexia, they showed consistent preferences. However, rhythmic grouping was predicted by musical rhythm perception ability, irrespective of dyslexia. The results suggest associations among musical rhythm perception ability, speech rhythm perception, and reading ability. This highlights the importance of considering individual variability to better understand dyslexia and raises the possibility that musical rhythm perception ability is a key to phonological and reading acquisition.

scholarly journals Rhythm of music seen through dance: Probing music–dance coupling by audiovisual meter perception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Huang Su
Keyword(s):  
Action Perception ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Modal Interactions ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Visual Rhythm ◽  
Visual Motor ◽  
Point Light ◽  
Visual Modulation ◽  
Common Action

Action–perception coupling in music has been evidenced not only by how patterns of human dance reflect the metrical structure of musical rhythm, but also that moving to music modulates rhythm perception. Given the inherent connection between music and dance, this research investigated whether dance observation could induce meter perception of the visual rhythm similarly to the musical counterpart, and whether the visual meter could modulate concurrent auditory metrical perception. In Experiment 1, participants watched a point-light figure dance to a rhythm they heard simultaneously, both of which varied in meter. Participants responded whether the dance matched the rhythm, and the results were consistent with the imposed audiovisual meter match / mismatch, suggesting that participants could extract the visual meter from dance and compare it to the auditory meter. In Experiment 2, participants watched the dance in different meters while listening to a metrically ambiguous rhythm, which they (to some extent) subsequently identified as being more similar to another rhythm accentuated in the same meter as the dance than one in a different meter. The data partially supported visual modulation of auditory metrical interpretation. Together these results demonstrate parallels in meter perception between music and dance, which may share a common action representation that mediates cross-modal interactions. The findings also support theories of embodied musical rhythm from the perspective of visual-motor simulation.

scholarly journals Prosody perception in children: studying individual differences with novel brain and behavioral approaches

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Myers ◽  
Chloe Vaughan ◽  
Uma Soman ◽  
Scott Blain ◽  
Kylie Korsnack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Stimulus Reconstruction ◽  
Speech Envelope

AbstractA sizeable literature has shown that perception of prosodic elements bolsters speech comprehension across developmental stages; recent work also suggests that variance in musical aptitude predicts individual differences in prosody perception in adults. The current study investigates brain and behavioral methods of assessing prosody perception and tests the relationship with musical rhythm perception in 35 school-aged children (age range: 5;5 to 8;0 years, M = 6;7 years, SD = 10 months; 18 females). We applied stimulus reconstruction, a technique for analyzing EEG data by fitting a temporal response function that maps the neural response back to the sensory stimulus. In doing so, we obtain a measure of neural encoding of the speech envelope in passive listening to continuous narratives. We also present a behavioral prosody assessment that requires holistic judgments of filtered speech. The results from these typically developing children revealed that individual differences in stimulus reconstruction in the delta band, indexing neural synchrony to the speech envelope, are significantly related to individual differences in behavioral measurement of prosody perception. In addition, both of these measures are moderately to strongly correlated with musical rhythm perception skills. Results support a domain-general mechanism for cognitive processing of speech and music.Graphical Abstract

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