Perception and Production of Syncopated Rhythms

Abstract

THE PROCESSING OF COMPLEX, METRICALLY ambiguous rhythmic patterns, of the sort found in much popular music, remains poorly understood. We investigated listeners' abilities to perceive, process and produce complex, syncopated rhythmic patterns. Rhythmic complexity was varied along a continuum, quantified using an objective metric of syncopation suggested by Longuet-Higgins and Lee. Participants (a) tapped in time to the rhythms, (b) reproduced the same patterns given a steady pulse, and (c) recognized these patterns when replayed both immediately and after a 24-hour delay. Participants tended to reset the phase of their internally generated pulse with highly syncopated rhythms, reinterpreting or "re-hearing" the rhythm as less syncopated. High complexity in rhythmic stimuli can thus force a reorganization of their cognitive representation. Less complex rhythms were more robustly encoded than more complex syncopated rhythms in the delayed memory task. Syncopated rhythms provide a useful tool for future explorations of human rhythmic competence.

Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences

“…In the present study, individual participants achieved the highest tapping synchronization percentages when segregated layers were presented with indeterminate pitch, but these conditions also gave rise to the largest variance across participants. These findings are consistent with previous studies that found that degree of syncopation is a good predictor of synchronization performance (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007;Toiviainen & Snyder, 2003), and that musical training provides an advantage in hierarchical meter processing (Geiser et al, 2010;Palmer & Krumhansl, 1990).…”

“…Furthermore, when asked to tap along or reproduce nonisochronous sequences, participants perform better when the temporal structure is characterized by integer rather than non-integer duration ratios, e.g., 2:1 and 3:1 as opposed to 3:2 or 4:3 (Franěk, Radil, & Indra, 1988;Repp, London, & Keller, 2005). Finally, in rhythmic sequences that involve syncopation (as measured by the number of beats that are not explicitly marked by an event onset), performance accuracy decreases as the degree of syncopation increases (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007).…”

Expectancy-Violation and Information-Theoretic Models of Melodic Complexity

“…(6) Note density quantifies how many notes per second the melody contains (with more notes, the melody is assumed to be more complex, which is related to the motor-limitations of performance and to the span of the short-term memory in general). (7) Rhythmic variation is the overall deviation of the note durations where higher variance suggests higher complexity (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007). (8) Metrical accent is a measure of phenomenal accent asynchrony where higher values indicate higher complexity (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007).…”

“…(7) Rhythmic variation is the overall deviation of the note durations where higher variance suggests higher complexity (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007). (8) Metrical accent is a measure of phenomenal accent asynchrony where higher values indicate higher complexity (Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007). The differences between the principles can be illustrated with three examples taken from the Essen collection, all of which also belong to the D6 dataset.…”

“…Similarly, the regularities in the temporal domain of music (temporal hierarchy, patterns, and syncopation) have also been the subject of several perceptual studies (e.g., Desain & Honing, 1989;Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007;Gómez, Melvin, Rappaport, & Toussaint, 2005;. In short, melodies which form clear expectancies that are clearly structured in terms of their tonal, intervallic, and rhythmic properties tend to be easier to reproduce and recognize, and are also judged by listeners as being less complex.…”