Where is the beat in that note? Effects of attack, duration, and frequency on the perceived timing of musical and quasi-musical sounds.

Abstract

Where is the beat in that note? Effects of attack, duration, and frequency on the perceived timing of musical and quasi-musical sounds AbstractWhen coordinating physical actions with sounds, we synchronise our actions with the perceptual center (P-center) of the sound, understood as the specific moment at which the sound is perceived to occur. Using matched sets of real and artificial musical sounds as stimuli, we probed the influence of Attack (rise time), Duration, and Frequency (center frequency) on perceived P-center location and P-center variability. Two different methods to determine the P-centers were used:Clicks aligned in-phase with the target sounds via the method of adjustment, and tapping in synchrony with the target sounds. We found that attack and duration are primary cues for Pcenter location and P-center variability, and that the latter is a useful measure of P-center shape.Probability density distributions for each stimulus display a systematic pattern of P-center shapes ranging from narrow peaks close to the onset of sounds with a fast attack and short duration, to wider and flatter shapes indicating a range synchronization points for sounds with a slow attack and long duration. The results support the conception of P-centers as not simple time points, but "beat bins" with characteristic shapes, and the shapes and locations of these beat bins are dependent upon both the stimulus and the synchronization task. Public significance statementIn music and dance, as well as many other contexts, we coordinate our physical actions with sounds. Our research shows how the fine-grained details of a sound interact in our temporal perception of it. This has implications for a wide range of applications that involve timing, from rehearsing musical ensembles to the sonification of complex patterns of information.

A comparison of methods for investigating the perceptual center of musical sounds

“…This is because there is a distinction between acoustic onset of a sound (which can be subliminal), the perceptual onset (at which point a sound can be detected), and the P-center itself, which is the reference point for where a sound is placed relative to other sounds in a rhythmic sequence (Morton, Marcus, & Frankish, 1976). While originally conceived as a discrete location sometime after the acoustic onset of a sound, subsequent research has shown that P-centers may have some temporal spread and shape (Danielsen et al, 2019;Gordon, 1987;Wright, 2008). Likewise, when a sequence of events occurs, it is the timing between successive P-centers that determines whether the sequence is perceived as regular or irregular.…”

Timing Is Everything…Or Is It? Effects of Instructed Timing Style, Reference, and Pattern on Drum Kit Sound in Groove-Based Performance

“…One potential explanation for the instrumental reference leading to lower overall NMA, however, is that the guitar and bass sounds used in the instrumental reference track had longer attack and total durations than the faster and shorter metronome woodblock sounds. Accordingly, as predicted by the findings of research into the perceptual centers of musical sounds (Danielsen et al, 2019;Gordon, 1987;Villing, 2010), the synchronized target location for drummers would be slightly later in the instrumental reference. Regardless, our findings accord with previous studies showing that synchronization to more ecological musical stimuli tends to lead to less NMA than synchronization to metronomic stimuli (Dixon, Goebl, & Cambouropoulos, 2006;Repp, 2008;Wohlschläger & Koch, 2000).…”

“…For pattern 2, an analogously complex and aesthetically appropriate version of the backing track was given, where the guitar pattern was syncopated on the second chord on the ''4-and'' beat, and the alternating quarter-note bass tones were always preceded by eighth-note pick-ups (total duration % 300 ms) ( Figure 3B). While we had no Pcenter data on these guitar and bass sounds, since they all had fast attacks (% 15-25 ms) and previous experiments have shown that P-center of plucked string instruments tend to be close to stimuli onset (Danielsen et al, 2019), all the instrumental reference stimuli were simply aligned to the software grid based on their calculated onset values (see ''Audio Analysis'' sub-section below for onset calculation details).…”

“…It may also be related to the fact that participants described laid-back and pushed as more ambiguous timing style categories that allowed for a greater range of onset locations while still sounding aesthetically ''correct.'' This suggests that drummers, like guitarists and bassists, also regarded the ''beat bin,'' or temporal range in which sounds are perceived as synchronous with the beat (Danielsen, 2010;Danielsen et al, 2019) in the pushed and laidback styles as broader than that of on-beat strokes.…”

“…Studies of a sound's P-center, or perceptual ''moment of occurrence'' (Morton, Marcus, & Frankish, 1976) or ''perceptual attack time'' (Gordon, 1987), for example, have shown that, at least in isochronous contexts, the perceived temporal location of a sound event is a complex matter contingent upon more than just onset timing. Practically all studies on the P-centers of musical sounds have found that the faster a sound's attack (onset to maximum amplitude peak) and total (onset to offset) duration, the earlier its average P-center relative to its onset, and, conversely, the longer the duration (both slow attack and long total duration), the later the P-center (Bechtold & Senn, 2018;Danielsen et al, 2019;Gordon, 1987;London et al, 2019;Scott, 1998;Seton, 1989;Villing, 2010;Vos, Mates, & Kruysbergen, 1995;Vos & Rasch, 1981;Wright, 2008). A recent study by Danielsen and colleagues (2019) also found that positively correlated combinations of attack and total duration (fast attack/short duration, slow attack/long duration) caused a ''redundancy gain'' whereby both factors shifted P-centers either earlier or later in time, respectively.…”