Tracking musical patterns using Joint Accent Structure

Abstract

Abstract Joint Accent Structure (jAS) is a construct that uses temporal relationships between different accents in a melodic pattern as indices of its complexity. Concordant patterns are ones in which the periodic recurrence of melodic accents form simple ratios with the period of temporal accents (e.g., 1:1, 1:2), whereas Discordant patterns have periods of melodic and temporal accents with a more complex accent period ratio (e.g., 3:2). Participants were told to selectively attend to and synchro-nize finger taps with accents in two experiments that examined attentional tracking to musical patterns having a "concordant " or "discordant " JAS. Results indicated that tapping was more variable with discordant than with concordant JAS patterns, both with respect to produced inter-accent time periods and with respect to the phase o