Is Beat Induction Innate or Learned?

Abstract

Meter is considered an important structuring mechanism in the perception and experience of rhythm in music. Combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures, in the present study we investigate whether meter is more likely a learned phenomenon, possibly a result of musical expertise, or whether sensitivity to meter is also active in adult nonmusicians and newborn infants. The results provide evidence that meter induction is active in adult nonmusicians and that beat induction is already functional right after birth.

Full text

Page 1

THE NEUROSCIENCES AND MUSIC III—DISORDERS AND PLASTICITY
Is Beat Induction Innate or Learned?
Probing Emergent Meter Perception in Adults
and Newborns using Event-related
Brain Potentials
Henkjan Honing,aOlivia Ladinig,aG´ abor P. H´ aden,b
and Istv´ an Winklerb
aInstitute for Logic, Language & Computation and Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam,
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
bInstitute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Meter is considered an important structuring mechanism in the perception and experi-
ence of rhythm in music. Combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures, in
the present study we investigate whether meter is more likely a learned phenomenon,
possibly a result of musical expertise, or whether sensitivity to meter is also active
in adult nonmusicians and newborn infants. The results provide evidence that meter
induction is active in adult nonmusicians and that beat induction is already functional
right after birth.
Key words: rhythm; meter; beat induction; event-related brain potentials (ERPs)
Introduction
Beat induction, the process in which a regu-
lar isochronous pattern (the beat or tactus) is
activated while listening to music,1,2is con-
sidered a fundamental human trait that ar-
guably played a decisive role in the origin of
music because it can be considered a human-
specific and domain-specific skill.3However,
theorists are divided on the issue of whether
this ability is innate or learned. Most authors
consider beat and meter perception to be ac-
quired during the first year of life,3–5suggest-
ing that parents’ rocking their babies to music
is the most important factor in developing a
sense for beat. We combined behavioral and
electrophysiological measures to test whether
meter is active in adult nonmusicians. In ad-
Addressforcorrespondence:HenkjanHoning,CognitiveScienceCen-
ter Amsterdam (CSCA), and Institute for Logic, Language & Com-
putation F (ILLC), University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 19268, NL-
1000 GG Amsterdam, the Netherlands. honing@uva.nl. http://www.
musiccognition.nl/newborns/
dition, we studied newborns using a similar
paradigm.
Methods
Experiment 1: Adult Study
In the first experiment, we tested whether
meter (hierarchical representation of a rhyth-
mic sound sequence) emerges in adults with
no extensive music training, and whether it
is modulated by attention. To this end, re-
actions to meter violations were assessed us-
ing behavioral and electrophysiological mea-
sures. Reaction time (RT) and discrimination
sensitivity (d?) measurements served to char-
acterize active detection of meter violations,
whereas event-related brain potentials (ERPs)
were used to assess the detection of meter vi-
olations under different task loads while the
rhythmic sound sequences were not relevant to
the participants’ task. We presented to nonmu-
sicians weakly and strongly syncopated rhyth-
mic patterns (deviants, Dn) in a nonsyncopated
The Neurosciences and Music III—Disorders and Plasticity: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1169: 93–96 (2009).
doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04761.x
c ?2009 New York Academy of Sciences.
93

Page 2

94
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Figure 1. Schematic illustration of the stimuli
used in the experiments.
context (standards, Sn) to probe sensitivity for
meter, using behavioral (RT and d?measures of
discrimination sensitivity) and ERP measure-
ments. The ERP responses were expected to
revealwhetherthesyncopateddeviantpatterns
violated implicit expectations produced within
theauditorysystemirrespectiveofthedirection
of focused attention. Deviations from expected
sounds are known to elicit the mismatch neg-
ativity (MMN) ERP component with violating
stronger expectation reflected by earlier and
higher-amplitude responses.6,7
Stimuli
Six different sound patterns were con-
structed (Fig. 1), which were variants of a
rhythmic rock pattern (base pattern, S1) with
eight grid points. The rhythmic patterns were
presented by a typical rock-drum accompa-
niment using snare and bass, and with a hihat
on every grid point. The base pattern and the
threevariants(containingomissionsonthelow-
est metrical level) were strictly metrical; that is,
they contained no syncopation or slurred notes
throughout the pattern. Together, these four
metric patterns formed the set of standard pat-
terns (S1–S4). Two deviants were constructed
by omitting events on metrically salient posi-
tions in the base pattern, which leads to synco-
pated patterns: A strongly syncopated pattern
was created by omitting the downbeat (D1),
and a slightly weaker syncopation by omitting
the second most important beat (D2).
Procedure
Experiment 1A: Subjects (n = 11) were asked
to listen to two blocks of 300 continuously pre-
sented trials, and indicate any “deviant” pat-
terns by pressing a button placed in the domi-
nant hand. The two blocks consisted of 90%
standard patterns (S1, S2, S3, and S4 with
equal probability of 22.5%) randomly inter-
mixed with 5% D1 and 5% D2 patterns.
Experiment 1B: In two conditions the subjects
were asked either to press a button at occa-
sional intensity changes in a continuous con-
current noise stream (unattended condition) or
ignore all sounds (passive condition) and watch
aself-selectedmutedmoviewithsubtitles.Each
conditionconsistedof10blocksof300continu-
ouslypresentedtrialsofrhythmicpatterns.The
blocks consisted of 90% standard patterns (S1,
S2,S3,andS4withequalprobabilityof22.5%)
randomly intermixed with 10% of D1 or D2
patterns, presented in separate stimulus blocks.
One control block for each deviant containing
300 trials of either D1 or D2 patterns was also
delivered.Artifact-freeERPresponseswereex-
tracted from the continuous EEG records, fil-
tered, baseline-corrected, and averaged sepa-
rately for the different sound patterns. Deviant
responses were compared with the responses
elicited by the same patterns when they did not

Page 3

Honing et al.: Is Beat Induction Innate or Learned?
95
Figure 2. Group-averaged (n = 11) deviant-minus-control difference waveforms (thick lines for D1; thin
lines for D2 deviants) measured in the unattended (left) and passive (right) conditions. Responses are aligned
at the onset of the deviation with the position-related peak latency difference marked by dashed lines and
arrows. Strong deviants elicited earlier and, overall, higher-amplitude responses irrespective of the direction
of focused attention.
violate the rhythmic regularity of the sequence
(control responses).
Results
Discrimination sensitivity was significantly
higher for strong (D1) than for weak (D2) de-
viants (t = 2.80, df = 10, P < 0.05). There was
also a tendency toward faster RTs for strong
than for weak deviants (t = 1.85, P < 0.1).
Earlier and higher-amplitude MMN responses
were elicited by the D1 (most salient) than by
the D2 (less salient) deviant, supporting the hy-
pothesis that subjects were sensitive to meter
(Fig. 2). These results suggest that meter per-
ception is active in nonmusicians irrespective
of the direction of focused attention. [N.B.: An
elaborate description of this experiment is pub-
lished in Ladinig et al.8]
Experiment 2: Newborn Study
Stimuli
The stimuli were the same as Experiment 1,
exceptthatonlyD1(Fig.1)wasusedasdeviant.
Procedure
Sleeping newborns (n = 14) were presented
with five blocks of 300 continuous trials of
rhythmicpatterns.Theblocksconsistedof90%
standard patterns (S1, S2, S3, and S4 with
equal probability of 22.5%) randomly inter-
spersed with 10% of D1 patterns. In addition,
one stimulus block consisting of 300 trials of
D1 patterns was delivered to provide identical-
stimulus control for deviant patterns. Artifact-
free ERP responses were extracted from the
continuous EEG records, filtered, baseline-
corrected, and averaged separately for the dif-
ferent sound patterns. Responses elicited by
deviant patterns were compared with the re-
sponses to the same pattern when it did not vi-
olate any regularity (deviant-control) as well as
with responses elicited by standard patterns in-
cluding omitted strokes at nonsalient positions
of the rhythmic pattern.
Results
Figure 3 shows that the electrical brain re-
sponses elicited by the standard and deviant-
control patterns are very similar to each other,
whereasthedeviantstimulusresponseobtained
in the main test sequence significantly (ranges
marked on the figure) differs from them. [N.B.:
An elaborate description of this experiment is
published in Winkler et al.9]
Conclusions
The results presented in this paper provide
evidence that violating the beat of a rhythmic

Page 4

96
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Figure 3. Group-averaged (n = 14) electrical brain responses elicited by rhythmic sound
patterns in neonates. Responses to standard (average of S2, S3, and S4; green), deviant
(D; red), and deviant-control patterns (D patterns appearing in the repetitive control stimulus
block; blue) are aligned at the onset of the omitted sound (compared to the full pattern: S1)
and shown from 200 ms before to 600 ms after the omission. Gray-shaded areas mark the
time ranges with significant differences between the deviant and the other ERP responses. (In
color in Annals online.)
sound sequence is detected by adult non-
musicians and newborn infants alike. So it ap-
pears that the capability of detecting beat in
rhythmicsoundsequencesisalreadyfunctional
at birth.9Beat detection requires only that the
length of the full cycle and its onset are repre-
sented in the brain. However, it is possible that
neonates form a detailed representation of the
base pattern. This would allow them not only
to sense the beat, but also to build a hierar-
chically ordered representation of the rhythm
(meter induction), as was found for adults.8
This exciting possibility is an issue for further
research.
Acknowledgments
Thisresearch was supportedby the
European Commission’s 6th Framework Pro-
gramme for ‘‘Information Society Technolo-
gies’’ (project title: EmCAP Emergent Cog-
nition through Active Perception, contract
013123). We thank J´ anos Rig´ o and Istv´ an
Sziller for supporting the study of neonates at
the First Department of Obstetrics and Gyne-
cology, Semmelweis University, Budapest and
Erika J´ ozsa V´ aradin´ e and Zsuzsanna D’Albini
for collecting the neonate and adult ERP data,
respectively.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
References
1. Desain, P. & H. Honing. 1999. Computational models
of beat induction: the rule-based approach. J. New
Music Res. 28: 29–42.
2. Vuust, P., K.J. Pallesen, C. Bailey, et al. 2005. To
musicians, the message is in the meter: pre-attentive
neuronal responses to incongruent rhythm are left-
lateralized in musicians. NeuroImage 24: 560–564.
3. Patel, A. 2008. Music, Language and the Brain. Oxford
University Press. Oxford, UK.
4. Hannon, E.E. & S. E. Trehub. 2005. Metrical cate-
gories in infancy and adulthood. Psychol. Sci. 16: 48–
55.
5. Phillips-Silver,J.&L.J.Trainor.2005.Feelingthebeat:
movementinfluencesinfantrhythmperception.Science
308, 1430.
6. N¨ a¨ at¨ anen,R.,M.Tervaniemi,E.Sussman,etal.2001.
“Primitive intelligence” in the auditory cortex. Trends
Neurosci. 24: 283–288.
7. Winkler,I.2007.Interpretingthemismatchnegativity
(MMN). J. Psychophysiol. 21: 147–163.
8. Ladinig,O.,H.Honing,G.H´ aden&I.Winkler.2009.
Probing attentive and pre-attentive emergent meter in
adult listeners without extensive music training. Music
Percept. 26(4): 377–386.
9. Winkler, I., G. Haden, O. Ladinig, et al. 2009. New-
born infants detect the beat in music. Proc. Natl. Acad.
Sci. USA 106: 2468–2471.