An attentional effect of musical metrical structure

Jonah Katz (1, 2) , Emmanuel Chemla (3) , Christophe Pallier (4)

1 West Virginia University [Morgantown]
2 IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod
3 LSCP - Laboratoire de sciences cognitives et psycholinguistique
4 UNICOG-U992 - Neuroimagerie cognitive - Psychologie cognitive expérimentale

Theories of metrical structure postulate the existence of several degrees of beat strength. While previous work has clearly established that humans are sensitive to the distinction between strong beats and weak ones, there is little evidence for a more fine grained distinction between intermediate levels. Here, we present experimental data showing that attention can be allocated to an intermediate level of beat strength. Comparing the effects of short exposures to 6/8 and 3/4 metrical structures on a tone detection task, we observe that subjects respond differently to beats of intermediate strength than to weak beats.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Jonah Katz, Emmanuel Chemla, Christophe Pallier. An attentional effect of musical metrical structure. PLoS ONE, 2015, 10 (11), pp.14539 - 14544. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0140895⟩. ⟨cea-01820417⟩