Multisensory influences on the perception of rhythmic patterns in infants and adults
Poster

Jessica Phillips-Silver
Psychology Department McMaster University

Laurel J. Trainor
Psychology Department McMaster University

     Abstract ID Number: 139
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: May 20, 2003

Abstract
Music is a multisensory experience. The perception of rhythm, in particular, relies not only on audition, but also on systems involving motor, vestibular and proprioceptive information. The current study investigated the influence of movement in the encoding of an auditory rhythmic pattern. Participants were familiarized with a rhythmic pattern containing no accented beats that can be interpreted in one of two ways (i.e., in subdivisions of 2 or 3 beats). Seven-month-old infants were bounced in the arms of an adult on either every second or every third beat. Infants were then given a head-turn preference test for the pattern with every second beat accented through amplification, versus the pattern with every third beat accented through amplification (i.e., BEAT-rest- BEAT-beat-BEAT-rest-BEAT-rest-BEAT-beat-BEAT-rest, etc.; versus BEAT-rest-beat-BEAT-beat-rest-BEAT-rest-beat-BEAT-beat-rest, etc.). Infants showed a familiarity preference, listening longer to the auditory accented interpretation that matched the movement with which they had been familiarized, F(1, 13) = 7.65, p < .05. Adults more frequently recognized at test the accented pattern that corresponded with the bouncing experienced during familiarization as matching what they had heard during familiarization, F(1, 18) = 6.45, p < .05. Given that this pattern of results could not be observed based on the ambiguous auditory signal alone, we conclude that there is a multisensory encoding of the stimulus. Thus the experience of movement during familiarization influenced the auditory encoding of the rhythmic pattern in both infants and adults.