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Huang JK, Yin B. Phylogenic evolution of beat perception and synchronization: a comparative neuroscience perspective. Front Syst Neurosci 2023; 17:1169918. [PMID: 37325439 PMCID: PMC10264645 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2023.1169918] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2023] [Accepted: 05/16/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023] Open
Abstract
The study of music has long been of interest to researchers from various disciplines. Scholars have put forth numerous hypotheses regarding the evolution of music. With the rise of cross-species research on music cognition, researchers hope to gain a deeper understanding of the phylogenic evolution, behavioral manifestation, and physiological limitations of the biological ability behind music, known as musicality. This paper presents the progress of beat perception and synchronization (BPS) research in cross-species settings and offers varying views on the relevant hypothesis of BPS. The BPS ability observed in rats and other mammals as well as recent neurobiological findings presents a significant challenge to the vocal learning and rhythm synchronization hypothesis if taken literally. An integrative neural-circuit model of BPS is proposed to accommodate the findings. In future research, it is recommended that greater consideration be given to the social attributes of musicality and to the behavioral and physiological changes that occur across different species in response to music characteristics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jin-Kun Huang
- Laboratory for Learning and Behavioral Sciences, School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
| | - Bin Yin
- Laboratory for Learning and Behavioral Sciences, School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
- Department of Applied Psychology, School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
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Large EW, Roman I, Kim JC, Cannon J, Pazdera JK, Trainor LJ, Rinzel J, Bose A. Dynamic models for musical rhythm perception and coordination. Front Comput Neurosci 2023; 17:1151895. [PMID: 37265781 PMCID: PMC10229831 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2023.1151895] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2023] [Accepted: 04/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Rhythmicity permeates large parts of human experience. Humans generate various motor and brain rhythms spanning a range of frequencies. We also experience and synchronize to externally imposed rhythmicity, for example from music and song or from the 24-h light-dark cycles of the sun. In the context of music, humans have the ability to perceive, generate, and anticipate rhythmic structures, for example, "the beat." Experimental and behavioral studies offer clues about the biophysical and neural mechanisms that underlie our rhythmic abilities, and about different brain areas that are involved but many open questions remain. In this paper, we review several theoretical and computational approaches, each centered at different levels of description, that address specific aspects of musical rhythmic generation, perception, attention, perception-action coordination, and learning. We survey methods and results from applications of dynamical systems theory, neuro-mechanistic modeling, and Bayesian inference. Some frameworks rely on synchronization of intrinsic brain rhythms that span the relevant frequency range; some formulations involve real-time adaptation schemes for error-correction to align the phase and frequency of a dedicated circuit; others involve learning and dynamically adjusting expectations to make rhythm tracking predictions. Each of the approaches, while initially designed to answer specific questions, offers the possibility of being integrated into a larger framework that provides insights into our ability to perceive and generate rhythmic patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward W. Large
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States
- Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States
| | - Iran Roman
- Music and Audio Research Laboratory, New York University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Ji Chul Kim
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States
| | - Jonathan Cannon
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
| | - Jesse K. Pazdera
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
| | - Laurel J. Trainor
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
| | - John Rinzel
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Amitabha Bose
- Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States
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Modeling enculturated bias in entrainment to rhythmic patterns. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010579. [PMID: 36174063 PMCID: PMC9553061 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2021] [Revised: 10/11/2022] [Accepted: 09/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Long-term and culture-specific experience of music shapes rhythm perception, leading to enculturated expectations that make certain rhythms easier to track and more conducive to synchronized movement. However, the influence of enculturated bias on the moment-to-moment dynamics of rhythm tracking is not well understood. Recent modeling work has formulated entrainment to rhythms as a formal inference problem, where phase is continuously estimated based on precise event times and their correspondence to timing expectations: PIPPET (Phase Inference from Point Process Event Timing). Here we propose that the problem of optimally tracking a rhythm also requires an ongoing process of inferring which pattern of event timing expectations is most suitable to predict a stimulus rhythm. We formalize this insight as an extension of PIPPET called pPIPPET (PIPPET with pattern inference). The variational solution to this problem introduces terms representing the likelihood that a stimulus is based on a particular member of a set of event timing patterns, which we initialize according to culturally-learned prior expectations of a listener. We evaluate pPIPPET in three experiments. First, we demonstrate that pPIPPET can qualitatively reproduce enculturated bias observed in human tapping data for simple two-interval rhythms. Second, we simulate categorization of a continuous three-interval rhythm space by Western-trained musicians through derivation of a comprehensive set of priors for pPIPPET from metrical patterns in a sample of Western rhythms. Third, we simulate iterated reproduction of three-interval rhythms, and show that models configured with notated rhythms from different cultures exhibit both universal and enculturated biases as observed experimentally in listeners from those cultures. These results suggest the influence of enculturated timing expectations on human perceptual and motor entrainment can be understood as approximating optimal inference about the rhythmic stimulus, with respect to prototypical patterns in an empirical sample of rhythms that represent the music-cultural environment of the listener. Cross-cultural studies have highlighted that listeners from non-Western cultures can precisely tap along with complex rhythms present in music from their culture that are challenging for participants from Western cultures. Therefore, while most adults can synchronize movements with simple periodic patterns (e.g. a ticking clock, a metronome), the ability to precisely track more complex rhythmic patterns depends on musical experience. Many computer models have been developed to describe the remarkable precision of human “entrainment”, but they have done little to explain how this ability depends on cultural musical experience. Here, we describe this as the problem of estimating the phase of a cycle underlying an auditory rhythm in real time, by drawing upon learned patterns (reference structures) that could plausibly describe the structure of observed events. By creating a model that solves this inference problem, and configuring these patterns to reflect specific musical features, we are able to simulate cultural variation in synchronization to rhythm. These results highlight that while humans universally move to musical rhythm, the ability to do so depends on musical experience within a cultural tradition, as reflected by the distinct “categories” of rhythm learned during such experience.
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Sauvé SA, Bolt ELW, Nozaradan S, Zendel BR. Aging effects on neural processing of rhythm and meter. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:848608. [PMID: 36118692 PMCID: PMC9475293 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.848608] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
When listening to musical rhythm, humans can perceive and move to beat-like metrical pulses. Recently, it has been hypothesized that meter perception is related to brain activity responding to the acoustic fluctuation of the rhythmic input, with selective enhancement of the brain response elicited at meter-related frequencies. In the current study, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded while younger (<35) and older (>60) adults listened to rhythmic patterns presented at two different tempi while intermittently performing a tapping task. Despite significant hearing loss compared to younger adults, older adults showed preserved brain activity to the rhythms. However, age effects were observed in the distribution of amplitude across frequencies. Specifically, in contrast with younger adults, older adults showed relatively larger amplitude at the frequency corresponding to the rate of individual events making up the rhythms as compared to lower meter-related frequencies. This difference is compatible with larger N1-P2 potentials as generally observed in older adults in response to acoustic onsets, irrespective of meter perception. These larger low-level responses to sounds have been linked to processes by which age-related hearing loss would be compensated by cortical sensory mechanisms. Importantly, this low-level effect would be associated here with relatively reduced neural activity at lower frequencies corresponding to higher-level metrical grouping of the acoustic events, as compared to younger adults.
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Müller MA, Martínez-Guerrero A, Corsi-Cabrera M, Effenberg AO, Friedrich A, Garcia-Madrid I, Hornschuh M, Schmitz G, Müller MF. How to orchestrate a soccer team: Generalized synchronization promoted by rhythmic acoustic stimuli. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:909939. [PMID: 35966986 PMCID: PMC9372544 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.909939] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Interpersonal coordination requires precise actions concerted in space and time in a self-organized manner. We found, using soccer teams as a testing ground, that a common timeframe provided by adequate acoustic stimuli improves the interplay between teammates. We provide quantitative evidence that the connectivity between teammates and the scoring rate of male soccer teams improve significantly when playing under the influence of an appropriate acoustic environment. Unexpectedly, female teams do not show any improvement under the same experimental conditions. We show by follow-up experiments that the acoustic rhythm modulates the attention level of the participants with a pronounced tempo preference and a marked gender difference in the preferred tempo. These results lead to a consistent explanation in terms of the dynamical system theory, nonlinear resonances, and dynamic attention theory, which may illuminate generic mechanisms of the brain dynamics and may have an impact on the design of novel training strategies in team sports.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Maria Corsi-Cabrera
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
- Institute of Neurobiology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Queretaro, Mexico
| | - Alfred O. Effenberg
- Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Sportwissenschaft, Hannover, Germany
| | | | - Ignacio Garcia-Madrid
- Posgrado en Ciencias Sociales, Facultad de Estudios Superiores de Cuautla, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuautla, Mexico
| | - Matthias Hornschuh
- Institut für Musik und Musikwissenschaft, Stiftung Universität Hildesheim, Kulturcampus Domäne Marienburg, Hildesheim, Germany
| | - Gerd Schmitz
- Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Sportwissenschaft, Hannover, Germany
| | - Markus F. Müller
- Centro Internacional de Ciencias, A.C., Cuernavaca, Mexico
- Centro de Investigación en Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico
- Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
- *Correspondence: Markus F. Müller,
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