When you listen to rhythm, you can predict the timing of sounds by learning the pattern of longer and shorter sounds (like morse code). But how do we represent a rhythmic pattern in our minds? We used a probabilistic model of musical predictions to figure this out. Across three different tasks, we found that listeners primarily rely on abstract and imprecise representations: instead of “this interval was 400 ms and the next is 350 ms” we seem to represent rhythmic patterns more like “long, a bit longer, a bit shorter, shortish” – we rely on ratios and contour mostly!

Full paper in Cognition can be found here, all code and data here.

Recently, our lab has contributed to a long-standing debate: does musical training make you smarter? There are many ways to address this somewhat controversial question, and the principal investigators on this project, Massimo Grassi and Francesca Talamini, took a very elegant one: a multi-lab study. Over 100 researchers from across the globe collected data on a very wide battery of cognitive tasks in both people with and without extensive musical training. While a correlational design, it does help answer pertinent questions, since if no difference is present between musicians and non-musicians, than causation is not likely either. The study resulted in a beautiful dataset, with nuanced results. Do musicians have better working-memory than non-musicians? Well, “maybe”, and “it depends”… We did find an effect, but it was very small. I am very happy and proud that we could contribute to this great effort from Leiden!

Full paper in Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science can be found here.

New paper out in Cerebral Cortex, spearheaded by Atser Damsma. When you listen to rhythm, you can often feel a regular beat. If a rhythm slows down or speeds up, your perception of the beat changes. We set out to test whether we can detect this in EEG. The answer is yes. The neural synchronisation with the beat shifts to a different level in the rhythm if we change the tempo. But then things got more interesting: we tried modelling this shift, using an entrainment model, and a simple model of evoked responses. Turns out both models can mimic the metrical shift that happens with a tempo-change! So what does neural synchronisation to beat-specific frequencies mean? We argue that evoked responses can explain more than we may have thought…

Full paper in Cerebral Cortex can be found here and all code and data can be found here.

Now officially out: our updated chapter on how to probe beat perception in human adults, newborns, and nonhuman primates. With Henkjan Honing and Gábor Háden, and with many thanks to Hugo Merchant for inviting us to update our chapter from 10 years ago. We discuss what the different aspects of rhythm are that can be probed with ERPs, and how to design stimuli that induce a beat in various ways. We also review how this has been done in human adults, newborns, and nonhuman primates.

The chapter can be found here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-60183-5_13. An open access preprint of the chapter (identical to the published version) is available on OSF: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/azk9q.