The aim of the present study was to investigate if the perception of time is affected by actively attending to different metrical levels in musical rhythmic patterns. In an experiment with a repeated-measures design, musicians and nonmusicians were presented with musical rhythmic patterns played at three different tempi. They synchronized with multiple metrical levels (half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes) of these patterns using a finger-tapping paradigm and listened without tapping. After each trial, stimulus duration was judged using a verbal estimation paradigm. Results show that the metrical level participants synchronized with influenced perceived time: actively attending to a higher metrical level (half notes, longer intertap intervals) led to the shortest time estimations, hence time was experienced as passing more quickly. Listening without tapping led to the longest time estimations. The faster the tempo of the patterns, the longer the time estimation. While there were no differences between musicians and nonmusicians, those participants who tapped more consistently and accurately (as analyzed by circular statistics) estimated durations to be shorter. Thus, attending to different metrical levels in music, by deliberately directing attention and motor activity, affects time perception.

when rhythms consisting of two unequal intervals are reproduced cyclically, their interval ratio tends to be distorted in the direction of 1:2 (= 0.5), which thus seems to function as an “attractor ratio” (AR). However, recent results for musicians in a synchronization task (Repp, London, & Keller, 2011) have suggested an upward-shifted AR (USAR) somewhat greater than 0.5. Three new experiments suggest that this shift is not due to synchronization versus continuation tapping, the range of interval ratios employed, unimanual versus bimanual tapping, intensity differences between taps, or mental subdivision of the long interval, although some of these factors may affect its size. The new results also show that the USAR is found more consistently in musicians than in nonmusicians and seems to arise in rhythm production, not in perception. While the exact causes of the USAR remain unclear, the results suggest that the AR is not necessarily the mathematically simplest interval ratio.

SUBDIVISION BY COUNTING HAS BEEN SHOWN TO improve interval discrimination for durations exceeding 1.2 s (Grondin,Meilleur-Wells, & Lachance, 1999). The present study examined whether simple interval subdivision (bisection) reduces variability of synchronization with a slow metronome. Interval durations ranged from 1 s to 3.25 s.Musically trained participants tapped in synchrony with the metronome while: (1) refraining from any subdivision, (2) mentally bisecting each interval, (3) making additional taps at the bisection points (double tempo tapping), or (4) tapping only at the bisection points (anti-phase tapping). In each task, the standard deviation of asynchronies and intertap intervals was found to increase almost linearly with interval duration, but the slope decreased from condition 1 to condition 4. Differences among conditions were nearly absent with intervals of 1 s (roughly consistent with Grondin et al., 1999), but emerged and increased steadily as interval duration increased. In double tempo tapping, anti-phase taps were less variable than in-phase taps and depended less on the immediately preceding taps. The findings are interpreted in terms of multiple temporal references in synchronization, and their potential relevance to musical ensemble playing is pointed out.

WHEN A MELODY BEGINS WITH AN ANACRUSIS, (i.e.,"pick up" notes), rhythm and meter are out of phase. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the interactions between structural (rhythm and pitch) and performance (articulation and tempo) factors on the perception of anacruses. The independent variables were rhythmic figure, initial melodic direction, initial melodic interval, implied harmony, articulation, and tempo. Participants tapped "every other beat" to melodies composed for each experiment; the phase-alignment of taps with the stimulus was the dependent measure of anacrustic vs. non-anacrustic perception. Experiment 1 found a strong main effect for rhythmic figure and an interaction between rhythmic figure and tempo. Experiment 2 showed that as tempo increased there was a systematic shift toward anacrustic perception of some melodies. Experiment 3 found that in a rhythmically impoverished context, pitch-based structural factors had only a weak effect on the perception of anacrusis.

PHASE CORRECTION, WHICH IS NECESSARY for synchronization of movements with a rhythm, has been studied primarily with isochronous sequences.We used a phase perturbation method to examine phase correction in synchronization with nonisochronous sequences (3:2 interval ratios), using musically trained participants. In isochronous control sequences, the phase correction response (PCR) of the tap following a small phase shift was larger when the intervals were long (600 ms) than when they were short (400 ms). In nonisochronous cyclic two-interval patterns, we found a similar dependence of the PCR on the duration of the interval following a phase shift. In three-interval patterns, however, there was no clear dependence on interval duration. The metrical interpretation of the sequences (downbeat location) had no effect on phase correction. In general, phase correction was as effective with nonisochronous as with isochronous sequences.

RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE OFTEN FAVORS a particular beat that is marked by frequent tone onsets and grouping accents. Using rhythms similar to those of Povel and Essens (1985), we asked musically trained participants to tap on physically or mentally imposed beats that either coincided with the favored beat or were phase-shifted relative to it. Surprisingly, tapping was equally stable. Actually, variability tended to be lowest when the imposed beat was in anti-phase with the favored beat; however, this tendency was reversed when participants were instructed to tap in anti-phase with the beat. These results demonstrate that precise on-beat synchronization with different imposed beats can be achieved by locking into the metrical grid defined by a rhythm's basic pulse. The favored beat provides the most stable reference for off-beat tapping but not necessarily for onbeat tapping, which relies to a greater extent on intervening rhythm tones as temporal references.