Listeners to music do not perceive rhythm on a continuous time scale. Instead, rhythmic categories are perceived which function as a reference relative to which deviations from strict timing are perceived. These deviations are experienced as the expressive character of the performed rhythm. In this research we investigate the effect of context (e.g. meter, tempo, accent) on the perception of rhythmic categories. A first version of an elaborated quantization demo allows you to explore the experimental data and results obtained. At the bottom of the demo the various experimental conditions are indicated, the ternary plot (time clumping map) shows the responses for the different stimuli. When you click on a point in the map the corresponding stimulus is shown at the right-hand side.You can play the stimulus and click on the response label to see the subjects responses in music notation.
Start up the quantization demo.
N.B. The current demo is a draft version with little additional explanation. For more details on, e.g., the experimental design and representation used, see Desain & Honing (2003). Additional sound examples and some animations can be found here.
Figure. Rhythm space (a), ternary plot (b), and two pattern examples (c). The triangular slice in a represents the patterns of three time intervals and one second total duration. The ternary plot (b, the triangular slice shown from above) shows the sampling of rhythm space, each dot representing a stimulus. The grid can be interpreted following the direction of the tick marks along the axes. As an example (c), two rhythms are marked in the sampled rhythm space.