Re: Rhythm

[Laurent Demany <Laurent.Demany@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill,

>        Can you distinguish between 75-25 and 67-33?

Yes, easily (according to experiments that we are currently doing in this area).

>        How about 75-25 vs 70-30?

67-33 can be reliably discriminated from 69-31 by some listeners at least.

>        Presumably the answer depends somehow on the tempo. How?

Difficult question: If you want to study the discrimination of
duration RATIOS, the tempo has to be randomized within trials.
Otherwise, the subject could simply discriminate the durations themselves
(e.g., 75 vs.70, or 25 vs.30 in your example).

>        Next: how about the ability to reliably PRODUCE such a division?

The nice work that Saul Sternberg did about this (Jont Allen mentioned it)
was published in 1982 as a chapter in The Psychology of Music, edited by
Diana Deutsch.

        Laurent
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Laurent Demany
Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie, UMR CNRS 5543,
BP 63, Universite Bordeaux 2
146 rue Leo Saignat, F-33076 Bordeaux Cedex, France
Tel : (33) 5 5757 1651
Fax : (33) 5 5699 0380
e-mail: Laurent.Demany@psyac.u-bordeaux2.fr
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