Cross-cultural Study of Rhythm Perception and Production

Makiko Sadakata & Peter Desain

NICI, Radboud University Nijmegen

RPPW 2005, 2-6, July

Impact of proactive actions

Musical training have an effect on• Perception:

Deeper understanding of the structure Increased sensitivity to the diverse beat levels (Drake, 1993; Drake & Penel, 2000)

• Production: More expressive and consistent timing profiles(Drake & Palmer, 2000)

Impact of passive exposure

Amount of exposure to a certain music style have an effect on

• PerceptionBeat levels (Drake & El Heni, 2003)

Detection of altered context (Hannon & Trehub, 2005) Perceptual grouping (Iversen, Patel & Ohgushi, 2004)

• Production Characteristic performance timing (Ohgushi, 2001; Sadakata, Desain & Ohgushi, 2004)

Effect of a non-musical factor?

• Japanese are exposed to western tonal music as often as Westerners are.

Speech rhythm plays a role on temporal processing in music : nPVI(Patel & Danielle, 2003, Huron & Ollen, 2003; Sadakata & Desain, submitted)

Issues

Relation between cognitive complexity and the degree of the cultural impact.

This will be clarified using rhythmic stimuli labeled according to their cognitive complexity.

Rhythm perception and production in relation to speech rhythm.

This will be clarified by using the perception and production nPVI.

4 experiments

• Rhythm perception• (Consistency)• Rhythm production• (Familiarity Judgement)

• N=36 (18 NL, 18 JP),• Conservatory piano major students• Mean age: 22

Rhythm description

Three-intervals provided by two different forms

Sound stimuli - performance midi files

Score stimuli - CMN figures

Perception Experiment

Production Experiment

Sound stimuli

Rhythm Space: Desain & Honing, 2003

Syncopation Level(Longuet-Higgins & Lee, 1984)

0 : No syncopation

I : Syncopation strength 0

II : Syncopation strength 1

III : Syncopation strength 2

IV: 2 syncopations

nPVI

nPVI (Grave, Post, & Watson, 1999) calculates the durational variability of successive duration.

Speech rhythm: Stress-timed > Syllable-timed (Grabe & Low, 2002)

Musical rhythm: Stress-timed > Syllable-timed (Patel & Danielle 2003)

€

nPVI(d1d2 ...dn ) =100

n −1

dk − dk+1

dk + dk+1

2

⎛

⎝ ⎜

⎞

⎠ ⎟k=1

n−1

∑

(Japanese)

(Japanese?)

Result: Perception 4/4

Result Perception 6/8

Result Perception 3/4

Production

Production nPVI

Summary of the result

• Systematic cultural difference only found in production.

• Cultural difference was found in more syncopated patterns.

• Tendency of the speech nPVI did not account for the data.

Comparison of Syncopation level and nPVI

1st int SD 2nd int SD 3rd int SD Repetition Confidence Number of the responsesSycnopation level - .58** .33* .64** .43** -0.42**

nPVI - - - - - -

1st int SD 2nd int SD 3rd int SD Repetition DifficultySycnopation level - .68** .43** .94** .74**

nPVI .39* .54** - - .36*

Perception

Production

Conclusion

• There seems to be a relation between cognitive complexity and degree of cultural difference on rhythm production.

• A hierarchical mental representation of rhythm based on metrical structure corresponds better to the data than a serial representation.

Effect of the time signature

• The effect of the time signature was found in the scores having more contrasted syncopation levels when presented in 3/4 and 6/8.

3/4 6/8 distance T1 T2 T3 T1 T2 T3

0.18 0.65 0.17 0.17 0.66 0.17

(0.05) (0.06) (0.04) (0.05) (0.06) (0.04)

0.65 0.17 0.19 0.65 0.17 0.18

(0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.06) (0.04) (0.05)

0.16 0.17 0.66 0.17 0.17 0.66

(0.04) (0.04) (0.05) (0.05) (0.04) (0.07)

0.35 0.48 0.17 0.36 0.48 0.17

(0.06) (0.07) (0.05) (0.07) (0.09) (0.04)

0.50 0.15 0.34 0.51 0.16 0.32

(0.07) (0.04) (0.06) (0.07) (0.04) (0.07)

0.16 0.50 0.34 0.18 0.48 0.35

(0.04) (0.08) (0.07) (0.05) (0.08) (0.08)

0.35 0.16 0.49 0.33 0.18 0.49

(0.08) (0.04) (0.10) (0.06) (0.03) (0.07)

0.51 0.32 0.17 0.49 0.34 0.17

(0.11) (0.09) (0.05) (0.07) (0.07) (0.04)

0.17 0.33 0.50 0.15 0.37 0.48

(0.04) (0.07) (0.08) (0.03) (0.07) (0.07)

0.34 0.32 0.34 0.33 0.34 0.33

(0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.07) (0.06) (0.07)

3/4 6/8

3-2-1

Syncopation level

3

4

2

2

2

02 2

0 0

1 2

1 2

0 1

2 4

0 4

02

2

14

0

0

1

1

1

1-2-3*

1-1-1**

Rhythm

1-4-1

4-1-1

1-1-4

2-3-1

3-1-2

1-3-2

2-1-3