Feeling the beat: movement influences infant rhythm perception

Abstract

We hear the melody in music, but we feel the beat. People in all cultures move their bodies to the rhythms of music, whether drumming, sing-ing, dancing, or rocking an infant (1). Body movement involves motor, proprioceptive (per-ception of body position), vestibular (percep-tion of movement and balance), visual, and auditory systems (2), but few studies have ex-amined auditory-vestibular interactions. The ability to feel and interpret the strong and weak beats in a rhythm pattern allows people to move and dance in time to music. Typically, the strong beats of a rhythm pat-tern are played louder, longer, or both, and th