Waarom kan jouw partner niet dansen? [Dutch]

"Sta je eindelijk weer eens met je partner op de dansvloer, gaat hij nog voor het einde van het eerste nummer op je tenen staan. Hij voelt zich schuldig en jij bent teleurgesteld, want jij wil ook weleens romantisch over de dansvloer zwieren. Maar waarom kan jouw partner dat niet? Heeft-ie een slecht ritmegevoel?" 

In deze Universiteit van Amsterdam lezing geeft cognitief neurowetenschapper Fleur Bouwer (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Music Cognition Goup Associate) antwoord op die vraag.

 

Bouwer, F.L., Honing, H., & Slagter, H. A. (2020) Beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations in rhythm: similar perceptual effects, different underlying mechanisms. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(7), 1221-1241. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01529 

Honing, H., & Bouwer, F. L. (2019). Rhythm. In Rentfrow, P.J., & Levitin, D. (ed.), Foundations in Music Psychology: Theory and Research. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. ISBN 9780262039277.

Interested in rhythm and synchronization in humans and other animals?

Today a novel theme issue of the Philosophical Transactions B came out that assembles current studies that ask how and why precise synchronization and related forms of rhythm interaction are expressed in a wide range of behavior. The studies cover human activity, with an emphasis on music, and social behavior, reproduction and communication in non-human animals.

Greenfield, M. D., Honing, H, Kotz, S A. & Ravignani, A  (2021) Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 376 http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0324

Interested in rhythm and synchrony?

Preliminary announcement:

From 29 July 2019 through 2 August 2019 a workshop entitled Synchrony and Rhythmic Interaction: From Neurons to Ecology will be organized at the Lorentz Center, NL. It will bring together, for the first time, scholars from several disciplines aiming to exchange insights on synchrony and rhythmic interaction, from the neural level to ecology.

See for more information the Lorentz Center website.

Waar komt ons gevoel voor muziek vandaan? [Dutch]

Hendrik Spiering in de wetenschapsbijlage van NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 17 november 2018.

'Deze zomer verscheen [..] een kloek wetenschappelijk overzichtswerk The Origins of Musicality, een magnum opus. Honing: „We zijn nu echt verder dan 10, 15 jaar geleden, dankzij nieuwe inzichten uit de biologie. Er heerst een razende hypothesedrift!” In 2000 verscheen bij dezelfde wetenschappelijke uitgeverij (MIT Press) een vergelijkbaar groot handboek onder de titel The Origins of Music, Honing: „Onze nieuwe titel is natuurlijk expres gekozen. Toen ging het om het object: muziek. Nu gaat het over de capaciteit voor muziek. Die menselijke muzikaliteit bestaat op zijn minst uit twéé centrale vermogens, denken we: maatgevoel en relatief gehoor. Dat je dus haast gedachteloos met muziek kan meeklappen of meebewegen én dat je een melodie die iets hoger of lager wordt gezongen gewoon herkent als dezelfde melodie.” '

Een pdf van het artikel is hier te vinden.

Visiting the The University of Tokyo and Primate Research Institute in Inuyama

I had a wonderful few days in Tokyo for a small symposium and workshop organized by Kazua Okanoya (e.g., ten Cate & Okanoya, 2012) and a full day at the Kyoto Primate Research Institute as a guest of Yuko Hattori (e.g., Hattori et al., 2013, Hattori et al., 2015)

In Tokyo I met with several researchers working on rhythm, time perception and music, including Shinichi Furuya (Sophia University, Japan), Yoshimasa Seki (Aichi University, Japan), Noriko Katsu (Osaka University, Japan), Florian Waszak (Université Paris Descartes, France), and Kazuo Okanoya (Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan). It was a great afternoon that was wrapped up with a diner in a local restaurant were, in a round of introductions of the about twenty people that were present, there was Nō singing, Japanse rap and a tenor version of Ave Maria! For abstracts of the workshop see here.

A few days later I visited the Primate Research Institute (KUPRI) in Inuyama. Yuko Hattori was a superb host, showing me the elaborate facilities and allowing me to attend several ongoing experiments on visual and auditory cognition. I met with Ai, Ayumu and Akira and several other chimpansees well-known from the literature (see earlier blogs). Meeting Ai for the first time, after reading so much about her, was quite an emotional moment. See Ai doing one of her famous experiments below:

 Try to remember the position of the numbers on the screen, and then tap them out in ascending order. First you see me doing the task, and then Ai. Impressive, not?

Hattori, Y., Tomonaga, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2013). Spontaneous synchronized tapping to an auditory rhythm in a chimpanzee Scientific Reports, 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01566

Hattori, Y., Tomonaga, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2015). Distractor Effect of Auditory Rhythms on Self-Paced Tapping in Chimpanzees and Humans PLOS ONE, 10 (7) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130682

ten Cate, C., & Okanoya, K. (2012). Revisiting the syntactic abilities of non-human animals: natural vocalizations and artificial grammar learning Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367 (1598), 1984-1994 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0055

What do we share with other primates in terms of cognition?

Below a beautiful summary of the recent literature on the neurobiology of action imitation/understanding, language, and rhythmic processing/auditory timing (Mendoza & Merchant, in press). The neural circuitry that is thought to be involved in all three higher cognitive functions is shown here for three closely related primates: the macaque monkey, chimpanzee and human brain.

Schematic representation of the neural circuits for action imitation/understanding, language, and rhythmic processing in three closely related primates. Upper, middle and lower panels adapted from Hecht et al. (2013a), Rilling et al. (2008) and Merchant and Honing (2014), respectively.
(In turn, adapted from Mendoza & Merchant, in press.)

For me, and several other researchers in the field of rhythm cognition, the bottom panel is the most intriguing. It addresses the question in how far we share rhythm cognition with other primates.

Quite a few papers on this topic came out recently (I cite a small selection below). One of the teasing questions is the absence/presence of a bidirectional link between IPL (inferior parietal lobe) and MPC (medial premotor cortex), a link that quite a few researchers suspect is crucial to regularity detection or rhythmic entrainment in sound and music, and arguably should be considered a basic building block of musicality.

Ackermann, H., et al. (2014, in press). Brain mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: An evolutionary perspective. Behavioral and Brain Science.

Honing, H., & Merchant, H. (2014, in press). Differences in auditory timing between human and non-human primates. Behavioral and Brain Science.

Mendoza, G., Merchant, H. (2014). Motor system evolution and the emergence of high cognitive functions Progress in Neurobiology DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2014.09.001
 
Merchant, H., & Honing, H. (2014; online). Are non-human primates capable of rhythmic entrainment? Evidence for the gradual audiomotor evolution hypothesis. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7 (274) 1-8. doi 10.3389/fnins.2013.00274

 Patel, A., & Iversen, J. (2014). The evolutionary neuroscience of musical beat perception: the Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) hypothesis Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00057

Can bonobos synchronize to the beat?

A five-year-old bonobo (c) Reuters

Today the Daily Mail reports on an exciting new finding: Patricia Gray (University of North Carolina in Greensboro) and Ed Large (University of Connecticut) claim to have shown that bonobo's can synchronise to a beat.

According to Science News "the researchers gave a group of bonobos access to a specially tailored drum, then showed them people drumming rhythmically. Eventually three animals picked up the beat and were able to match tempos with the scientists. Bonobos were also found to prefer a faster pace than most people."


I'm still tracing the actual published paper. More in a few hours... I hope.

Update 20140218: It turns out the paper is still in preparation. While one of the authors was so kind to share a draft with me (confidentially that is), I guess we have to wait for the normal peer-review process to see whether the claims made in the Press Release – so confidently distributed via Reuters – can indeed be substantiated. Quite an unusual order of things, I have to say.

De Waal, Frans B.M. (1988). The Communicative Repertoire of Captive Bonobos (Pan Paniscus) Compared To That of Chimpanzees. Behaviour, 106 (3), 183-251 DOI: 10.1163/156853988X00269

Related press: See e.g., news item on Radio 1 België. 

P.S. In the Netherlands, bringing out facts as scientific, but that are not checked by peers (e.g., by journal peer-review), is considered bad practice. (In fact, it has lead in the past to several reprimands imposed by university representatives on the researchers involved.) These kind of 'incidents' cannot be good for the image of music cognition nor for science in general.

'Vocal mimicry hypothesis' falsified? [Part 2]

Figure (a) Ai tapped C4, (b) Ai tapped C5, (c) Time sequence of a test trial.

A few entries ago I uploaded a fragment from a study (Hattori et al., 2013) that discusses an intriguing experiment with three chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) which were trained to tap regularly on a piano keyboard.

While the video below is convincing, the study reports that only one of the three chimps participating in the experiment was able to do the task: a chimp named Ai (See video).  Furthermore, Ai was only able to synchronize with stimuli at a rate of 600 ms (and not at rates of 400 or 500 ms). In addition, Ai did this in reaction (positive asynchrony) and not in anticipation of the beat (negative asynchrony).

This is similar to what has been found in studies with macaques (Zarco et al., 2009; Konoike et al., 2012) that also seem to opt for a strategy of to react instead of anticipating to a regular beat. All this in contrast with humans that can intentionally synchronize their tapping to various rates (ranging roughly from 200 ms to 1800 ms) of a varying rhythmic stimulus (and not simply a metronome) while showing a negative synchronization error, i.e. in anticipation of the beat.

Another point of a more methodological nature is that the experimentators used, next to sound, what they called 'light navigation' (see diagram above), a visual cue for the chimps to 'remind them' of which key to press. While the authors write "it was unlikely that the visual stimuli affected tapping rhythm by chimpanzees" we can not be sure this is evidence for rhythmic entrainment in the auditory domain.

Nevertheless, with behavioral methods that rely on overt motoric responses it is difficult to separate between the contribution of perception and action (beat perception vs beat production). This makes electrophysiological measures (such as event-related potentials) a more direct and hence attractive alternative. The latter method has been shown a worthwhile, non-invasive alternative in studying cognitive and neural processing in primates (see, e.g., Ueno et al., 2009) and it was used recently in a study probing beat perception in macaques (Honing, Merchant et al., 2012).*

And lastly, these and earlier observations have lead to the auditory timing dissociation hypothesis (Honing, Merchant et al., 2012). This hypothesis accommodates the fact that nonhuman primates performance is comparable to humans in single interval tasks (such as interval reproduction, categorization and interception), but differs substantively in multiple interval tasks (such as rhythmic entrainment, synchronization and continuation).

* N.B. We are eager to collaborate with a primate lab that is willing to do such a relatively simple listening experiment using EEG with chimpanzees; Would be great to compare the results we now have for human adults, newborns, and macaques with the perception of Great Apes ! Feel free to email me :-)

Hattori, Y., Tomonaga, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2013). Spontaneous synchronized tapping to an auditory rhythm in a chimpanzee. Scientific Reports, 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01566.

Hasegawa, A., Okanoya, K., Hasegawa, T., & Seki, Y. (2011). Rhythmic synchronization tapping to an audio–visual metronome in budgerigars Scientific Reports, 1 DOI: 10.1038/srep00120

Honing, H., Merchant, H., Háden, G., Prado, L., & Bartolo, R. (2012). Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) detect rhythmic groups in music, but not the beat. PLoS ONE, 7 (12) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051369

Thrirty-two metronomes synchronizing?

If you place 32 metronomes on a static object and set them rocking out of phase with one another, they will remain that way indefinitely. Place them on a moveable surface, however, and something very interesting happens (dedicated to Christiaan Huygens):



For more 'variations' see the Ikeguchi Lab, Japan.

Are monkeys capable of rhythmic entrainment?

Hugo Merchant Lab

On Friday 24 May 2013  Hugo Merchant (Institute of Neurobiology, Querétaro, Mexico) will give a CSCA Lecture with the title Neurophysiology of temporal and sequential processing during a synchronization-continuation tapping task. He will present a recent study investigating rhythmic entrainment in Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

A recent study has shown that Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are able to spontaneously synchronize their arm movements when they are paired and facing each other, suggesting that monkeys can coordinate their actions in a social setting and establish some level of rhythmic entrainment (Nagasaka et al., 2013; see earlier entry). However, the asynchronies between the pairs of tapping monkeys are positive, largely dependent on the visual input that the other monkey provides, and with little influence on the sounds that the monkeys made when tapping. The question remains of whether more closer human relatives such as the great apes, show a more sophisticated ability for rhythmic entrainment than macaques.

Macaca mulatta

Hugo Merchant will present a recent study in which two monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained in a synchronization-continuation tapping paradigm called a synchronization-continuation tapping task (SCT) in which auditory (A) or visual (V) cues were presented to construct the periodic target interval ranging from 0.45 to 1 second. Initially, animals synchronized their arm movements with a sensory cue by tapping on a push-button, followed by self-pacing of the target interval when the metronome was switched-off. In addition, the monkeys performed a single interval reproduction task (SIRT). We recorded the single-cell activity of 1500 neurons from the macaque medial premotor cortex (MPC) during the task performance.

The results suggest that distinct populations of cells in the MPC can encode different temporal and sequential aspects of the SCT and suggest that MPC is part of a core timing network that uses interval tuning as a signal to represent temporal processing in a variety of behavioral contexts where time is explicitly quantified.

Location: room DS.02, REC D, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129 (entrance through REC G, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130), Amsterdam.

Time: 16:00 - 17:00 hrs, followed by informal drinks. Registration is not necessary.

For more information, see the website of the CSCA.

Nagasaka, Y., Chao, Z., Hasegawa, N., Notoya, T., & Fujii, N. (2013). Spontaneous synchronization of arm motion between Japanese macaques Scientific Reports, 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01151

Is beat induction species-specific? [Part 2]

It is a slowly but steadily unfolding story, with more and more evidence in support of it: The story revealing with what other species we share beat induction, a skill that is argued to be fundamental to music.

The ability to synchronize to the beat of the music has been demonstrated in several parrot species and, apparently, one elephant species, supporting the vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis, which posits that vocal learning provides a neurobiological foundation for auditory–motor entrainment.

While earlier experiments with parrots and related animals were criticized mainly for their relatively informal setup (e.g. using existing YouTube videos or analyzing home-made video’s), a few weeks ago an elegant and systematic study appeared in Nature Scientific Reports in which budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates), a vocal-learning parrot species, were trained to synchronize to a metronome. A study that can be considered an important first step towards understanding the timing control mechanism in vocal learners.



Video example of budgerigar doing a tapping task (Source).

Unfortunately, they were trained only to a (visual and auditory) metronome, and not a rhythmically varying acoustic signal (read: music), so we are still not sure this is indeed a case of beat induction. And is the bird in the video not simply reacting, instead of anticipating (predicting negative phase) as humans do?

Also, to be real support for the vocal learning (or vocal mimicking) hypothesis, additional experiments are still needed. Most notably an experiment that tests whether related species that are not vocal learners, such as doves, are incapable of the learning that the budgerigars show. (I know that at least one cognitive biologist is willing to pick up the glove :-)

Hasegawa, A., Okanoya, K., Hasegawa, T., & Seki, Y. (2011). Rhythmic synchronization tapping to an audio–visual metronome in budgerigars Scientific Reports, 1 DOI: 10.1038/srep00120

Is beat induction species-specific? [Part 1]

Beat induction (BI) is the cognitive skill that allows us to hear a regular pulse in music to which we can then synchronize. Perceiving this regularity in music allows us to dance and make music together. As such it can be considered a fundamental musical trait that, arguably, played a decisive role in the origin of music (see also earlier entries of this blog). Furthermore, BI has been argued to be a spontaneously developing, domain-specific and species-specific skill.

With regard to the first aspect, recent studies with infants and newborns provide some evidence suggesting such early bias (Honing et al., 2009). With regard to the second aspect convincing evidence is still lacking, although it was recently argued that BI does not play a role (or is even avoided) in spoken language (Patel, 2008). And with regard to the latter aspect, it was recently suggested that we might share BI with a selected group of bird species (Fitch, 2009) and not with more closely related species such as nonhuman primates.(Zarco et al., 2009). This is surprising when one assumes a close mapping between specific genotypes and specific cognitive traits. However, more and more studies show that genetically distantly related species can show similar cognitive skill, and this offers a rich basis for comparative studies of this specific cognitive function.

Most animal studies have used behavioral methods to probe the presence (or absence) of BI, such as tapping tasks or measuring head bobs. It might well be that if more direct electrophysiological measures are used (such as analogs of the MMN), nonhuman primates might indeed also show BI.

Its this hypothesis that that is the topic of a new and exiting collaboration of our group with that of Hugo Merchant at the Institute of Neurobiology in Querétaro, Mexico. This week we started a series of experiments with Rhesus Macaques using the same paradigm we used in our earlier newborn studies.



Fitch, W. (2009). Biology of Music: Another One Bites the Dust Current Biology, 19 (10) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.04.004

Honing H, Ladinig O, Háden GP, & Winkler I (2009). Is beat induction innate or learned? Probing emergent meter perception in adults and newborns using event-related brain potentials. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169, 93-6 PMID: 19673760

Patel, A. D. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zarco, W., Merchant, H., Prado, L., & Mendez, J. (2009). Subsecond Timing in Primates: Comparison of Interval Production Between Human Subjects and Rhesus Monkeys Journal of Neurophysiology, 102 (6), 3191-3202 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00066.2009

Is beat induction special? (Part 4)

Beat induction has been a recurring topic on this blog. The topic was also the focus at the opening symposium of the Neurosciences and Music Conference, currently being held in Montreal, Canada. Especially researchers like Jessica A. Grahn (Cognition and Brain Science Unit, Cambridge), Joel S. Snyder (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Ed W. Large (Florida Atlantic University) and John R. Iversen (Neursosciences Institute, San Diego) talked about different aspects of beat perception and synchonization in relation to the structure of the brain.

While there is quite some agreement that auditory rhythm processing is associated with movement and auditory brain areas, also some deeper brain areas were proposed as candidates. An elegant series of studies was presented by Joyce L. Chen (McGill University, Montreal) that went a step further in looking for patterns in how these brain areas might be interrelated. She could show (using a very nice design in which behavioral data informs and helps the analyses of brain imaging data) an intimate linkage between the auditory and premotor brain circuit, a link that was suggested to be “at the core of what links music, movement and language together”.

However, in how far beat induction is special –in the sense that it might be a uniquely human trait (see earlier blog)– is still under much discussion. Ed W. Large (Florida State University) mentioned in his talk yesterday that he is currently testing bonobo’s on having beat induction (Needless to say that he is optimistic on that, but the results will only be published later this year). This morning Aniruddh D. Patel (The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego) presented a poster with the first data of the ‘dancing cockatoo’ (mentioned in an earlier blog). Below a short compilation of some of the recordings that Patel’s group analyzed and presented here at the Neurosciences and Music conference (with the kind permission of Ani Patel):



The video is convincing in suggesting that the cockatoo seems to be really sensitive -at least in these fragments- to the tempo of the music and can be argued to really listen and able to pick up the induced beat. When looking at the actual measurements however, the story is less convincing. Five video’s where recorded, of which three had to be rejected because the experimenter might have moved along while the video was made. In the remaining two video’s ‘successful’ dancing on the beat was ranging between 2.5% to 20% of the trials (an episode of say one minute of dancing). Part of the problem, quite interesting from a methodological and statistical point of view, is how to show that all this is better than chance.

Patel, A.D., et al., . (2008). Investigating the human-specificity of synchronization to music. In: M. Adachi et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Music Perception and Cognition Conference (ICMPC10), Sapporo: Japan / Adelaide: Causal Productions.

Is beat induction special? (Part 3)

The Dutch TV program Boeken introduced the Cockatoo-video as the most fun and intriguing video of the year. Tijs Goldschmidt (a biologist and writer known from, e.g., Darwin's Dreampond) tells about the phenomenon of beat induction and why it is so relevant to cognitive scientists (see also an earlier blog).



In his upcoming book called Music, Language and the Brain, Ani Patel chose beat induction — referring to it as ‘beat-based rhythm processing’— as a key area in music-language research. He proposes it an important candidate in demonstrating "that there is a fundamental aspect of music cognition that is not a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms that also serve other, more clearly adaptive, domains (e.g. auditory scene analysis or language)." (Patel, 2008).

I couldn't agree more: beat induction could well turn out to be a key cognitive process in the evolution of music, and arguably central to the origins of music.*

With regard to the video mentioned above: Patel’s group is currently systematically filming the Cockatoo for analyses.

P.S. Yet another item from Dutch TV on beat induction:


*1994 demo on beat induction.

Is beat induction special? (Part 2)

Rhythmic behavior in non-human animals, such as chimpanzees, has been studied quite regularly. The video below is a nice illustration of how chimpanzees can use tools in a rhythmic, periodic fashion. Other researchers have shown that some apes are even capable of regularly tapping a drum. However, they seem unable to beat a drum—or rhythmically move or dance, for that matter— in synchrony to music, like a human would be able to do.



Hence the big surprise of the video below. A YouTube video that attracted quite some media attention in the US. What do you think? Evidence for beat induction (*) in animals?


The ultimate test is to do an experiment in which the speed (or tempo) of the music is systematically controlled for, to be able to answer the crucial question: will the Cockatoo dance slightly faster if the music is presented slightly faster?

I would be flabbergasted if that would be the case, since for a long time beat induction was considered a human trait, which I argued —along with some colleagues— to be essential to the origins of music in humans.

Currently, a North-American research group tries to find out. I'll keep you posted.

* Beat induction is the process in which a regular isochronous pattern (the beat) is activated while listening to music. This beat, often tapped along by musicians, is a central issue in time keeping in music performance. But also for non-experts the process seems to be fundamental to the processing, coding and appreciation of temporal patterns. The induced beat carries the perception of tempo and is the basis of temporal coding of temporal patterns. Furthermore, it determines the relative importance of notes in, for example, the melodic and harmonic structure.

Desain, P., Honing, H. (1999). Computational Models of Beat Induction: The Rule-Based Approach.. Journal of New Music Research, 28(1), 29-42.

Is beat induction special?

In the 1990s several researchers in cognitive science were concerned with trying to understand beat induction: the cognitive process of attributing a regular pulse to a musical fragment, the beat we're sometimes forced to tap our foot to.

I would like to argue that, from an evolutionary perspective, beat induction is one, if not the most fundamental aspect that made music possible. It allows us, humans, to synchronize, to dance, to clap, and to make music together, synchronizing to the beat of the music. Beat induction seems essential for all kinds of social and cultural activities, including rituals.

Interestingly, we do not share this capability with other animals. Researchers have, until now, unsuccessfully tried to have non-human animals —such as chimpanzees and elephants— synchronize to music. While non-human animals might show rhythmic behavior (like chimpanzees using tools) , they can not, for instance, play a drum in synchrony with the music, and consequently change it while the music changes tempo. However, some researchers, like Ani Patel of the Neuroscience Institute San Diego (see *), are optimistic.

For me, personally, there is no need to show that beat induction is solely a human trait, but it suggests that beat induction could have made a difference in the cognitive development of the human species.

* Patel, A.D. & Iversen, J.R. (2006). A non-human animal can drum a steady beat on a musical instrument. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC9), Bologna/Italy, August 22-26 2006, p. 477.