An Attentional Effect of Musical Metrical Structure.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26600180.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0140895 and PMC identifier 4658149.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
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.
Medical subject headings
- Attention
- Music