Ratings of speed in real music as a function of both original and manipulated tempo

• There is an apparent contradiction between the narrow range of tempi optimal for perceptualjudgment and motor synchronization and the wide range of beat tempi found in real music. Therelation between listeners’ perception of speed and beat tempo was therefore investigated, both forreal music excerpts (ME) and metronome sequences. Tempi ranged from 42 to 200 beats per minute (BPM), and some excerpts were further tempo manipulated in four levels from from ±5 to ±20%. Regression analyses showed that speed was a shallower function of original tempo for fast (> 150 BPM) and slow (< 95 BPM) MEs than for MEs with intermediate tempi, describing anon-linear, sigmoid function. Manipulated tempo had twice as large an effect on speed as hadoriginal tempo. In contrast, speed was an almost linear function of tempo for metronome sequences.Taken together, these results show that the non-linearity stems from properties of the musical signal,rather than being a subjective perceptual effect. They indicate an inverse relation between tempo andrelative event density in real music, and demonstrate that the perception of periodic signals isaffected not only by the beat level, but also by faster and slower levels.© 2010 Acoustical Society of America.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Strömningsmekanik och akustik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper -- Neurovetenskaper (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine -- Neurosciences (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musikvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Musicology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Psychology

Psykologi

Acoustics

Akustik

Neuroscience

Neurovetenskap

Music

Musikvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)