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.

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.

Lesions to the Motor System Affect Action Perception

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Serino ◽  
Laura De Filippo ◽  
Chiara Casavecchia ◽  
Michela Coccia ◽  
Maggie Shiffrar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Recognition ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Visual Sensitivity ◽  
Cortical Lesion ◽  
Motor Deficit ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Dynamic Stimuli ◽  
Point Light

Several studies have shown that the motor system is involved in action perception, suggesting that action concepts are represented through sensory–motor processes. Such conclusions imply that motor system impairments should diminish action perception. To test this hypothesis, a group of 10 brain-damaged patients with hemiplegia (specifically, a lesion at the motor system that affected the contralesional arm) viewed point-light displays of arm gestures and attempted to name each gesture. To create the dynamic stimuli, patients individually performed simple gestures with their unaffected arm while being videotaped. The videotapes were converted into point-light animations. Each action was presented as it had been performed, that is, as having been produced by the observer's unaffected arm, and in its mirror reversed orientation, that is, as having been produced by the observer's hemiplegic arm. Action recognition accuracy by patients with hemiplegia was compared with that by 8 brain-damaged patients without any motor deficit and by 10 healthy controls. Overall, performance was better in control observers than in patients. Most importantly, performance by hemiplegic patients, but not by nonhemiplegic patients and controls, varied systematically as a function of the observed limb. Action recognition was best when hemiplegic patients viewed actions that appeared to have been performed by their unaffected arm. Action recognition performance dropped significantly when hemiplegic patients viewed actions that appeared to have been produced with their hemiplegic arm or the corresponding arm of another person. The results of a control study involving the recognition of point-light defined animals in motion indicate that a generic deficit to visual and cognitive functions cannot account for this laterality-specific deficit in action recognition. Taken together, these results suggest that motor cortex impairment decreases visual sensitivity to human action. Specifically, when a cortical lesion renders an observer incapable of performing an observed action, action perception is compromised, possibly by a failure to map the observed action onto the observer's contralesional hemisoma.

scholarly journals Visual rhythm perception improves through auditory but not visual training

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. R60-R61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Barakat ◽  
Aaron R. Seitz ◽  
Ladan Shams
Keyword(s):  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Visual Training ◽  
Visual Rhythm

Auditory and Visual Rhythm Perception in Relation to Reading Ability in Fourth Grade Boys

1966 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 859-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham M. Sterritt ◽  
Mark Rudnick
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Fourth Grade ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Visual Rhythm ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Temporal Rhythm

Auditory-temporal rhythm perception or the ability to transpose from auditory-temporal to visual-spatial patterns is related to reading in fourth-grade boys in a way that is not fully accounted for by general intelligence.

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 Theory and Practice of Long-form Non-isochronous Meters: The Case of the North Indian rūpak tāl

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Metrical Theory ◽  
The North ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
Metrical Pattern ◽  
Long Form

This paper addresses important issues in the theory of meter by means of a detailed study of a particular form of non-isochronous (NI) meter, the North Indian rūpak tāl. Rūpak tāl is described as comprising 7 equal mātrās (time units), organized into three groups (3+2+2 mātrās), and is therefore non-isochronous at the group rather than the beat or subdivision level. The term “long-form non-isochronous meter” is introduced to describe the phenomenon of metrical structures including a non-isochronous pulse level with IOIs >1000ms, of which this is an example. This phenomenon is explored with the aid of empirical analysis of a corpus of recordings of rūpak tāl performances, focusing particularly on vocal performances in khyāl style. This empirical data is considered in light of extant literature on Indian metrical organization, on ethnomusicological theories of aksak, on psychological theories of rhythm perception in NI-meters, and on metrical theory more broadly. The implications for a general theory of musical meter are then considered, leading to an argument that (a) while theorization is not a necessary condition of metrical perception, a recognized metrical pattern must be treated not only as a form of perception based on the entrainment of attention (London 2012), but as a form of culturally-shared knowledge contributing to top-down processing of meter; and (b) the theorization and representation of aspects of metrical structure means that metrical cycles are not limited to the extent of the psychological present.

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 Biological Motion Perception Is Affected by Age and Cognitive Style in Children Aged 8–15

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parisa Ghanouni ◽  
Amir Hossein Memari ◽  
Monir Shayestehfar ◽  
Pouria Moshayedi ◽  
Shahriar Gharibzadeh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Motion Perception ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Independent Predictor ◽  
Cognitive Styles ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Biological Motion Perception ◽  
Point Light

The current paper aims to address the question of how biological motion perception in different social contexts is influenced by age or also affected by cognitive styles. We examined developmental changes of biological motion perception among 141 school children aged 8–15 using point-light displays in monadic and dyadic social contexts. Furthermore, the cognitive styles of participants were investigated using empathizing-systemizing questionnaires. Results showed that the age and empathizing ability strongly predicted improvement in action perception in both contexts. However the systemizing ability was an independent predictor of performance only in monadic contexts. Furthermore, accuracy of action perception increased significantly from 46.4% (SD = 16.1) in monadic to 62.5% (SD = 11.5) in dyadic social contexts. This study can help to identify the roles of social context in biological motion perception and shows that children with different cognitive styles may present different biological motion perception.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document