Constraints on infants' musical rhythm perception: effects of interval ratio complexity and enculturation

Effects of culture‐specific experience on musical rhythm perception are evident by 12 months of age, but the role of culture‐general rhythm processing constraints during early infancy has not been explored. Using a habituation procedure with 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants, we investigated effects of tem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental science 2011-07, Vol.14 (4), p.865-872
Main Authors: Hannon, Erin E., Soley, Gaye, Levine, Rachel S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Age Differences
Auditory Perception
Babies
Child Development
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Processes
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Culture
Familiarity
Female
Habituation
Humans
Infant
Infants
Intervals
Male
Music
Music Education
Recognition (Psychology)
Sensory perception
Testing
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Summary:Effects of culture‐specific experience on musical rhythm perception are evident by 12 months of age, but the role of culture‐general rhythm processing constraints during early infancy has not been explored. Using a habituation procedure with 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants, we investigated effects of temporal interval ratio complexity on discrimination of standard from novel musical patterns containing 200‐ms disruptions. Infants were tested in three ratio conditions: simple (2:1), which is typical in Western music, complex (3:2), which is typical in other musical cultures, and highly complex (7:4), which is relatively rare in music throughout the world. Unlike adults and older infants, whose accuracy was predicted by familiarity, younger infants were influenced by ratio complexity, as shown by their successful discrimination in the simple and complex conditions but not in the highly complex condition. The findings suggest that ratio complexity constrains rhythm perception even prior to the acquisition of culture‐specific biases.
ISSN:1363-755X
1467-7687
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01036.x