Rhythmic Sequences Research Articles

Moving in time: Simulating how neural circuits enable rhythmic enactment of planned sequences

Many complex actions are mentally pre-composed as plans that specify orderings of simpler actions. To be executed accurately, planned orderings must become active in working memory, and then enacted one-by-one until the sequence is complete. Examples include writing, typing, and speaking. In cases where the planned complex action is musical in nature (e.g. a choreographed dance or a piano melody), it appears to be possible to deploy two learned sequences at the same time, one composed from actions and a second composed from the time intervals between actions. Despite this added complexity, humans readily learn and perform rhythm-based action sequences. Notably, people can learn action sequences and rhythmic sequences separately, and then combine them with little trouble (Ullén & Bengtsson 2003). Related functional MRI data suggest that there are distinct neural regions responsible for the two different sequence types (Bengtsson et al. 2004). Although research on musical rhythm is extensive, few computational models exist to extend and inform our understanding of its neural bases. To that end, this article introduces the TAMSIN (Timing And Motor System Integration Network) model, a systems-level neural network model capable of performing arbitrary item sequences in accord with any rhythmic pattern that can be represented as a sequence of integer multiples of a base interval. In TAMSIN, two Competitive Queuing (CQ) modules operate in parallel. One represents and controls item order (the ORD module) and the second represents and controls the sequence of inter-onset-intervals (IOIs) that define a rhythmic pattern (RHY module). Further circuitry helps these modules coordinate their signal processing to enable performative output consistent with a desired beat and tempo.

Rhythmic Abilities Correlate with L2 Prosody Imitation Abilities in Typologically Different Languages.

While many studies have demonstrated the relationship between musical rhythm and speech prosody, this has been rarely addressed in the context of second language (L2) acquisition. Here, we investigated whether musical rhythmic skills and the production of L2 speech prosody are predictive of one another. We tested both musical and linguistic rhythmic competences of 23 native French speakers of L2 English. Participants completed perception and production music and language tests. In the prosody production test, sentences containing trisyllabic words with either a prominence on the first or on the second syllable were heard and had to be reproduced. Participants were less accurate in reproducing penultimate accent placement. Moreover, the accuracy in reproducing phonologically disfavored stress patterns was best predicted by rhythm production abilities. Our results show, for the first time, that better reproduction of musical rhythmic sequences is predictive of a more successful realization of unfamiliar L2 prosody, specifically in terms of stress-accent placement.

Weighting of neural prediction error by rhythmic complexity: A predictive coding account using mismatch negativity.

The human brain's ability to extract and encode temporal regularities and to predict the timing of upcoming events is critical for music and speech perception. This work addresses how these mechanisms deal with different levels of temporal complexity, here the number of distinct durations in rhythmic patterns. We use electroencephalography (EEG) to relate the mismatch negativity (MMN), a proxy of neural prediction error, to a measure of information content of rhythmic sequences, the Shannon entropy. Within each of three conditions, participants listened to repeatedly presented standard rhythms of fivetones (four inter-onset intervals) and of a given level of entropy: zero (isochronous), medium entropy (two distinct interval durations), or high entropy (four distinct interval durations). Occasionally, the fourth tone was moved forward in time that is it occurred 100 ms (small deviation) or 300 ms early (large deviation). According to the predictive coding framework, high-entropy stimuli are more difficult to model for the brain, resulting in less confident predictions and yielding smaller prediction errors for deviant sounds. Our results support this hypothesis, showing a gradual decrease in MMN amplitude as a function of entropy, but only for small timing deviants. For large timing deviants, in contrast, a modulation of activity in the opposite direction was observed for the earlier N1 component, known to also be sensitive to sudden changes in directed attention. Our results suggest the existence of a fine-grained neural mechanism that weights neural prediction error to the complexity of rhythms and that mostly manifests in the absence of directed attention.

Brain Rhythm Sequencing Using EEG Signals: A Case Study on Seizure Detection

A technique based on five brain rhythms (δ, θ, α, β, and y) presented in the sequence for analyzing Electroencephalography (EEG) signals has been proposed. First, the production of the sequence has been accomplished by selecting the prominent brain rhythm having the maximum instantaneous power at specific timestamp consecutively throughout the EEG. To this purpose, the reassigned smoothed pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution (RSPWVD) has been employed. Then, in order to verify the proposed technique and evaluate its performance, a case study of seizure detection has been implemented. As experimental validation, 93 patients from the Karunya database have been investigated. Moreover, to characterize the brain rhythm sequence for seizure detection, two additional indices derived from the power discharge and synchronous behavior have been applied. Results show that the particular rhythm pattern during the seizure is usually one type (either δ, θ, or α) and it is subject-dependent. Hence, by focusing on the changes of such particular rhythm through the two indices, the time-related occurrences of seizures can be determined in detail. Meanwhile, the representative channels for seizure detection can be found by studying the similarity of sequences, which are helpful to reduce the number of applied channels. Finally, the proposed technique provides an accuracy of 98.9%, which demonstrates it is competent to detect the appearances of abnormal seizures from the EEG signals reliably. Consequently, the brain rhythm sequencing could open a new way to interpret and characterize the EEG in various applications such as for epileptic patients.

La concepción del poema en prosa como obra orgánica en Miguel de Unamuno

A lo largo del presente artículo demostraremos cómo Unamuno, en torno a los años 1912 y 1913, realiza una profunda reflexión poética que le lleva a borrar fronteras genéricas entre la prosa y la poesía. Gracias a los manuscritos de trabajo analizados mediante la metodología de la crítica genética, comprobaremos cómo pone en práctica esta reflexión teórica iniciando la redacción de un poemario en prosa. Asimismo, los apuntes autógrafos del prólogo que planeó para dicho volumen de versos se revelan de suma importancia, pues evidencian que Unamuno concibió el poema como un organismo, para cuya composición intentó desarrollar una secuencia rítmica basada en números impares. Será el endecasílabo el metro al que otorgue un lugar privilegiado dentro de su poética, y llegará a considerarlo como el auténtico «verso orgánico».

Conditional neural sequence learners for generating drums’ rhythms

Machine learning has shown a successful component of methods for automatic music composition. Considering music as a sequence of events with multiple complex dependencies on various levels of a composition, the long short-term memory-based (LSTM) architectures have been proven to be very efficient in learning and reproducing musical styles. The “rampant force” of these architectures, however, makes them hardly useful for tasks that incorporate human input or generally constraints. Such an example is the generation of drums’ rhythms under a given metric structure (potentially combining different time signatures), with a given instrumentation (e.g. bass and guitar notes). This paper presents a solution that harnesses the LSTM sequence learner with a feed-forward (FF) part which is called the “Conditional Layer”. The LSTM and the FF layers influence (are merged into) a single layer making the final decision about the next drums’ event, given previous events (LSTM layer) and current constraints (FF layer). The resulting architecture is called the conditional neural sequence learner (CNSL). Results on drums’ rhythm sequences are presented indicating that the CNSL architecture is effective in producing drums’ sequences that resemble a learnt style, while at the same time conform to given constraints; impressively, the CNSL is able to compose drums’ rhythms in time signatures it has not encountered during training (e.g. 17/16), which resemble the characteristics of the rhythms in the original data.

Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) Sense Isochrony in Rhythm, but Not the Beat: Additional Support for the Gradual Audiomotor Evolution Hypothesis.

Charles Darwin suggested the perception of rhythm to be common to all animals. While only recently experimental research is finding some support for this claim, there are also aspects of rhythm cognition that appear to be species-specific, such as the capability to perceive a regular pulse (or beat) in a varying rhythm. In the current study, using EEG, we adapted an auditory oddball paradigm that allows for disentangling the contributions of beat perception and isochrony to the temporal predictability of the stimulus. We presented two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with a rhythmic sequence in two versions: an isochronous version, that was acoustically accented such that it could induce a duple meter (like a march), and a jittered version using the same acoustically accented sequence but that was presented in a randomly timed fashion, as such disabling beat induction. The results reveal that monkeys are sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, but not its metrical structure. The MMN was influenced by the isochrony of the stimulus, resulting in a larger MMN in the isochronous as opposed to the jittered condition. However, the MMN for both monkeys showed no interaction between metrical position and isochrony. So, while the monkey brain appears to be sensitive to the isochrony of the stimulus, we find no evidence in support of beat perception. We discuss these results in the context of the gradual audiomotor evolution (GAE) hypothesis (Merchant and Honing, 2014) that suggests beat-based timing to be omnipresent in humans but only weakly so or absent in non-human primates.

Analysing the object of learning, using phenomenography

PurposeIn this paper, knowledge concerning the meaning of knowing the object of learning is developed using learning study as a research approach. The purpose of this paper is to show how the object of learning, in this case, playing with groove in rhythmic sequences, can be analysed and recognised using phenomenography.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports on a learning study conducted in three different fifth grade elementary school classes. Seven music teachers were involved in preparing the pre-test, designing three research lessons and analysing the material.FindingsThe findings show that several aspects of the object of learning must be discerned by the learner in order to experience the chosen object of learning and develop in the learning situation. The phenomenographic analysis contributed to refining the meaning of the object of learning.Originality/valueIn a learning study, knowledge concerning the meaning of the object of learning is generated. The development and specification of this knowledge will be empirically revealed through the analysis process. This paper will contribute to the discussion concerning what must be known in order to develop a specific capability in music education, namely, the capability to feel the groove.

A Commentary on Poudrier's "Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences"

This paper is a brief commentary on Poudrier's (2017) research article titled "Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences." Poudrier's study aimed "to explore the relative salience of an implied beat in two contrasting rhythmic sequences" (p. 277) taken from one of Elliott Carter's compositions using a pulse finding paradigm. In our commentary, we critically evaluate the current approach and discuss further interpretations based on the author's results. Primarily, we argue that it is very difficult to draw any clear conclusions from the data (on a mathematical/statistical basis) because the recorded tapping behavior, namely the overall synchronization rate of the participants was far below chance level. These results therefore need to be interpreted with caution, which also implies that emergence of temporal expectations in terms of the concept of "mensural determinacy," originally conceptualized by Hasty (1997), still needs further clarification. Nevertheless, this study may serve as a fruitful example for a pulse finding study, offering some helpful insights into the methodological issues when applying a tapping paradigm to highly complex art/modern music.

Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences

The tapping paradigm has played an important role in formulating beat induction models. However, experimental studies that make use of actual music as source materials to investigate pulse finding mechanisms in complex rhythmic sequences are lacking. The present study proposes to use the concept of mensural determinacy, that is, the emergence of temporal expectations that may or may not be realized (Hasty, 1997), to explore the relative salience of an implied beat in two contrasting rhythmic sequences extracted from Elliott Carter's 90+ for piano (1994), and test the influence of style-specific expertise on listeners' spontaneous tapping performance. The results of the experiment were consistent with the hypothesis that familiarity with the style represented by the source materials contributes to a more stable tapping period. In addition, although accent was found to have a main effect on tapping behavior, it also interacted with global temporal structure and a number of musical parameters and participant characteristics, including gender. Exploratory analyses of several additional musical parameters and participants' characteristics are also suggestive of how experimental methods could be complemented by post-hoc score analysis to investigate the contributions of specific factors to the relative influence of first- and second-order periodicity on musicians' beat percepts.

Musicians' Natural Frequencies of Performance Display Optimal Temporal Stability.

Many human action sequences, such as speaking and performing music, are inherently rhythmic: Sequence events are produced at quasi-regular temporal intervals. A wide range of interindividual variation has been noted in spontaneous production rates of these rhythmic action sequences. Dynamical theories of motor coordination suggest that individuals spontaneously produce rhythmic sequences at a natural frequency characterized by minimal energy expenditure and maximal temporal stability, relative to other frequencies. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the temporal variability with which musicians performed rhythmic melodies at their natural spontaneous rate with variability in their performances at faster and slower rates. Musicians' temporal variability was lowest during performances at their spontaneous rate; in addition, performers' tempo drift during trials at other rates showed bias toward their spontaneous rate. This study provides the first direct evidence that spontaneous rates of motor coordination represent optimally stable natural frequencies of endogenous rhythms.

Tapping to Carter: A Response to Fischinger and Dyck-Hemming

This short essay responds to issues raised by Fischinger and Dyck-Hemming in their commentary on this author's article "Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences." Borrowing Christopher Hasty's concept of mensural determinacy, I used an excerpt of Elliott Carter's 90+ for piano (1994) as source materials for a tapping experiment aimed at: (1) testing the hypothesis that style-specific expertise correlates with lower tapping variability; (2) exploring the influence of an implied beat on participants' interpretation of the underlying pulse, as shown by spontaneous tapping; and (3) exploring the influence of a subset of musical parameters as well as participants' characteristics on tapping behavior. This response aims to clarify the methodology employed, especially with reference to the interpretation of the results; it also addresses concerns raised by the reviewers in relation to the use of the tapping paradigm to investigate Carter's compositional language. While the experimental method necessarily limited the interpretation of participants' ongoing experience of pulse, the findings provide useful insights on the role of style-specific expertise and call for a more diverse and disciplinarily unbounded methodological approach to the study of musical communication.

Le rythme de la prose de Phérécyde de Syros

AbstractThe prose treatise that Pherecydes of Syros composed in the middle of the 6th centuryBCshows several instances where the rhythm of the dactylic hexameter is imitated. After defining four criteria to identify such imitations of dactylic rhythm by archaic prose writers (word order within the rhythmic sequence, potential substitution to an unmarked rhythm, length and interpretation), I analyse six examples and I argue that Pherecydes introduces rhythmic echoes to underscore the differences of his own view from the thought-contents that were developed by epic and theogonic poems. This study sheds light on traditional problems raised by archaic prose treatises: I argue that Pherecydes’ work was meant to be read before an audience on which it was intended to have an effect. In this light, it seems unlikely that his treatise had a purely hypomnematic function, or that it was only meant to be disclosed within the school itself.

SEQUENCE: a remote control technique to select objects by matching their rhythm

We present SEQUENCE, a novel interaction technique for selecting objects from a distance. Objects display different rhythmic patterns by means of animated dots, and users can select one of them by matching the pattern through a sequence of taps on a smartphone. The technique works by exploiting the temporal coincidences between patterns displayed by objects and sequences of taps performed on a smartphone: if a sequence matches with the pattern displayed by an object, the latter is selected. We propose two different alternatives for displaying rhythmic sequences associated with objects: the first one uses fixed dots (FD), the second one rotating dots (RD). Moreover, we performed two evaluations on such alternatives. The first evaluation, carried out with five participants, was aimed to discover the most appropriate speed for displaying animated rhythmic patterns. The second evaluation, carried out on 12 participants, was aimed to discover errors (i.e., activation of unwanted objects), missed activations (within a certain time), and time of activations. Overall, the proposed design alternatives perform in similar ways (errors, 2.8% for FD and 3.7% for RD; missed, 1.3% for FD and 0.9% for RD; time of activation, 3862 ms for FD and 3789 ms for RD).

Rhythm profiles and survival after out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest

ObjectiveTreatment: protocols for cardiac arrest rely upon rhythm analyses performed at two-minute intervals, neglecting possible rhythm changes during the intervening period of CPR. Our objective was to describe rhythm profiles (patterns of rhythm transitions during two-minute CPR cycles) following attempted defibrillation and to assess their relationship to survival. MethodsThe study included out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases presenting with ventricular fibrillation from 2011 to 2015. The rhythm sequence was annotated during two-minute CPR cycles after the first and second shocks of each case, and the rhythm profile of each sequence was classified. We calculated absolute survival differences among rhythm profiles with the same rhythm at the two-minute check. ResultsOf 569 rhythm sequences after the first shock, 46% included a rhythm transition. Overall survival was 47%, and survival proportion varied by rhythm at the two-minute check: ventricular fibrillation (46%), organized (58%) and asystole (20%). Survival was similar between profiles which ended with an organized rhythm at the two-minute check. Likewise, survival was similar between profiles with asystole at the two-minute check. However, in patients with ventricular fibrillation at the two-minute check, survival was twice as high in those with a transient organized rhythm (69%) compared to constant ventricular fibrillation (32%) or transient asystole (28%). ConclusionRhythm transitions are common after attempted defibrillation. Among patients with ventricular fibrillation at the subsequent two-minute check, transient organized rhythm during the preceding two-minute CPR cycle was associated with favorable survival, suggesting distinct physiologies that could serve as the basis for different treatment strategies.

A música métrica e a poética musical: influências da poética nos tratados de música portugueses nos séculos XVI-XIX

Desde o tratado de Tractado de Cãto Llano de Mateus de Aranda em 1533 até ao final do século xix, os tratadistas musicais portugueses procuraram incluir aspetos da poética nas respetivas obras teóricas. Entre outros aspetos, identificaram sequências rítmicas resultantes da utilização do metro, procedimento que António Fernandes designava, em 1626, de «música métrica». Vários outros tratadistas musicais evidenciaram a preocupação em adequar a música ao texto, incitando os compositores a uma «poética musical», isto é, ao conhecimento dos pés poéticos e à adaptação da partitura aos respetivos metros. É o que preconiza, por exemplo, Eugénio de Almeida no seu Tratado de Melodia de 1868 com exemplos de pés poéticos transcritos para pauta. Alguns tratadistas sugerem ainda analogias muito diretas entre o poeta e o músico, tal como Jerónimo Cardoso que, no Dictionarium Latino Lusitanicum de 1570, define «Musicus, i» da seguinte forma: «Ho musico, ou poeta». Evidenciar‑‑se‑‑ão também pontos de contacto entre poética e música, através de paralelismos, comparações, referências ou apropriação, abordando ainda o conceito de «música poética».

Some Tonal and Rhythmical Sequences in the Vocal Language of Dogs as Significant Earthquake Precursors

A monitoring of multiple physical parameters in a moderate seismic area in Western Piedmont (NW Italy) and the simultaneous observation of the behaviour of numerous species of domestic and wild animals gave in a period of over twenty years the possibility to distinguish the unusual animal behaviours due to local earthquake nucleation from other causes. In particular, the observation of the body and vocal language of dogs (Canis familiaris) in the same area has permitted not only to specify the different meanings of vocal language in connection to their body language, but also to classify the minimum elements into a vocal language that is linked together by tonal and rhythmical sequences of sounds that form a semantic lexicon. The usage of the same tonal and rhythmical vocal sequences in similar or identical situations, which are experienced by different groups of dogs, induces us to verify whether it could be possible to link particular vocal sequences to precise physical anomalies before earthquakes. The individuation of physical anomalies due to an earthquake nucleation or due to a hydro-geological destabilization, is possible thanks to a continuous long-term monitoring of some parameters. Moreover, the complexity of the vocal language of dogs increases if the dogs live in an area with a law population density. Then the correlation between some vocal sequences and some seismic precursors is better if dogs live free in yard or on farms, if they are in good health, and if they can establish a strong social relation of group. When dogs live closed in yards of houses that are far apart, they communicate with each other with an amazing vocal language, full of questions and answers, imitations of sequences, and information about situations that may be harmful to them.

Ritmos alterados. Fachadas urbanas en el Milán de la postguerra

<p>Urban façades are the outward manifestation of the character of a city, and are composed of elements that respond to rhythmic sequences in consonance with the internal order of the rooms behind them. In post-war Milan, façades were used as a field of experimentation by a group of architects, some of whom were also artists and designers, who saw themselves and can be seen as ambassadors for the future modernity of a city devastated by war. This article explains how the urban façades of Milan, based as they were on the themes drawn from the Italian compositional tradition, offer a wide variety of elements, figures and rhythms, altering and transgressing the compositional canons through the use of mechanisms that in some cases are closer to painting or sculpture than to architecture.</p>

The influence of varying vowel phonation and duration on rhythmic grouping biases among Spanish and English speakers

Native Mexican Spanish and American English speakers were presented with streams of alternating syllables in which vowel duration and/or creaky phonation were rhythmically varied. Participants’ grouping biases were measured as a function of their behaviour in segmenting sequences into recurrent bisyllabic units. Results indicated a creak-last grouping bias in both language groups. Duration varied singly was associated with a weak long-first grouping bias for Spanish and no consistent trend for English. When long creaky and short modal syllables were alternated, there was a significant creak-last bias and again no effect of duration in the English group. However, in the Spanish group, the long-first trend observed for duration varied singly was reversed and the effects of duration and creak were additive. Finally, when short creaky and long modal syllables were alternated, duration effects were highly significant in both language groups (fewer creak-last, more long-last groupings). Creak has been associated with final positions in higher-order prosodic domains in English, and less prevalently in Spanish. The current results show that both English and Spanish speakers can use this cue to segment rhythmic sequences into smaller, foot or word-sized units. This study is the first to establish that creak is perceptually salient for Spanish speakers and to demonstrate that the percept associated with duration can differ depending on whether it is varied singly or together with creak. More generally, the current findings show that grouping effects extend beyond intensity, pitch and duration, the features most often manipulated in rhythmic grouping studies inspired by the Iambic-Trochaic Law.

Musical training increases functional connectivity, but does not enhance mu suppression

Musical training provides an ideal platform for investigating action representation for sound. Learning to play an instrument requires integration of sensory and motor perception-action processes. Functional neuroimaging studies have indicated that listening to trained music can result in the activity in premotor areas, even after a short period of training. These studies suggest that action representation systems are heavily dependent on specific sensorimotor experience. However, others suggest that because humans naturally move to music, sensorimotor training is not necessary and there is a more general action representation for music. We previously demonstrated that EEG mu suppression, commonly implemented to demonstrate mirror-neuron-like action representation while observing movements, can also index action representations for sounds in pianists. The current study extends these findings to a group of non-musicians who learned to play randomised sequences on a piano, in order to acquire specific sound-action mappings for the five fingers of their right hand. We investigated training-related changes in neural dynamics as indexed by mu suppression and task-related coherence measures. To test the specificity of training effects, we included sounds similar to those encountered in the training and additionally rhythm sequences. We found no effect of training on mu suppression between pre- and post-training EEG recordings. However, task-related coherence indexing functional connectivity between electrodes over audiomotor areas increased after training. These results suggest that long-term training in musicians and short-term training in novices may be associated with different stages of audiomotor integration that can be reflected in different EEG measures. Furthermore, the changes in functional connectivity were specifically found for piano tones, and were not apparent when participants listened to rhythms, indicating some degree of specificity related to training.