Re: Rhythm perception (is really speech rhythm perception)

[Philip Dorrell <aud@xxxxxxxx>]

According to my "super-stimulus" theory of music 
(http://whatismusic.info/), the primary purpose of the cortical maps 
that respond to regular musical rhythms is to perceive the irregular 
rhythms of speech in a time-scaling invariant manner (i.e. the same 
rhythm at different tempos). My theory imposes an additional constraint 
on any theory of rhythm perception, in that it requires that the 
perception of musical rhythms must result in geometrical patterns of 
neural activity which are more constant than is the case when perceiving 
speech rhythms, and which have clearly defined perimeters between active 
and inactive regions.

This theory is consistent with the incremental perception of beat, 
because the purpose of rhythm perception must be to label the components 
of speech rhythm as they occur, as being more or less part of a regular 
rhythm. There is no purpose to "find" the regular beat, because in 
general there are no regular beats in speech. It's like Fourier 
analysis, which happens to produce a well-defined result for regular 
repeating signals, but can be quite useful in the characterisation of 
non-regular non-repeating signals.

The theory is also consistent with the observation that the ability to 
perceive musical rhythms is uniquely human (since speech is uniquely human).

Philip Dorrell.

Henkjan Honing wrote:

> On 15 Nov 2005, at 16:56, Leon van Noorden wrote:
>
> > I would say that finding the downbeat comes after beat induction.
>
>
> The insight of Longuet-Higgins (sorry to keep promoting him) was that  
> determining the “downbeat,” and consequently the perception of a  
> beat, is essentially an incremental process. The first note you hear  
> is, of course, by definition the downbeat. When hearing a second one  
> you can choose, after n notes there are innumerable possibilities:  
> “in principle infinitely ambiguous, but this ambiguity is seldom  
> apparent to the listener.” So, which one comes first is a relative  
> notion.
>
> Next to this I am convinced that the notion of “downbeat” (i.e.  
> phase, not period) is indeed a cultural phenomenon – the “Maracatu”  
> example (mentioned by Dan) being a good example.
>
> Henkjan
>
> P.S. It might be interesting to note is that the ability pick up a  
> regular beat from a sound signal, even while it is not explicitly in  
> the rhythm, is a typical (almost uniquely) human cognitive skill,  
> that allow us to synchronize, clap, dance and make music together.
>
>
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>
> Henkjan Honing
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