Tactus ≠ Tempo: Some Dissociations Between Attentional Focus, Motor Behavior, and Tempo Judgment

Three experiments explored the relationships between surface rhythmic activity, tactus or beat rate, attentional focus, sensorimotor synchronization (tapping), and tempo perception. All involved a rhythmic standard followed by a comparison; the experimental task was a judgment of “slower, same, or faster.” In Experiment 1 participants simply judged relative speed; they focused on the beat level in Experiment 2, and they tapped along as they made their judgments in Experiment 3. In all three experiments judgments were highly accurate (89-97% correct, relative to beat-level inter-onset interval) when the standard-comparison involved the same pattern/same tempo, and performed similarly for the same pattern at different tempos (80-83% correct). Performance degraded significantly in other contexts, especially for different patterns at the same tempo. A main effect for pattern (two levels: same vs. different) and a pattern x tempo interaction were observed in all three experiments; a main effect for tempo (collapsed to two levels: same vs. different) occurred only in Experiment 1. Analysis of a subset of the experimental conditions indicated that surface activity was of greater salience than the beat level in some contexts. Tapping along (Experiment 3) did not improve overall performance any more than simply focusing on the tactus level (Experiment 2), and a possible biasing effect of tapping rate on tempo judgment was observed. Thus there is an apparent dissociation between tactus rate, attentional focus, tapping behavior and tempo judgment. This suggests that our perception of musical speed or tempo is more than simple apprehension of the tactus rate

Three Things Linguists Need to Know About Rhythm and Time in Music

This paper, directed at researchers in linguistics, introduces three key aspects of musical rhythm and time for their consideration: (1) the distinction between groups of durations (i.e., acoustical events in the world) and our endogenous sense of beats and beat cycles, that is, musical meter; (2) the active nature of rhythmic perception and cognition, which involves both innate and enculturated responses to music, and (3) that musical rhythms involve temporal processes on different time scales (from 100ms to 5-7 seconds), though they are integrated into a coherent perceptual framework. In addition, the relationships between musical rhythm and sensorimotor entrainment, as well as some important differences between musical and linguistic rhythms, are discussed

Statistical versus Musical Significance: Commentary on Leigh VanHandel's 'National Metrical Types in Nineteenth Century Art Song'

In “National Metrical Types in Nineteenth Century Art Song” Leigh Van Handel gives a sympathetic critique of William Rothstein’s claim that in western classical music of the late 18th and 19th centuries there are discernable differences in the phrasing and metrical practice of German versus French and Italian composers. This commentary (a) examines just what Rothstein means in terms of his proposed metrical typology, (b) questions Van Handel on how she has applied it to a purely melodic framework, (c) amplifies Van Handel’s critique of Rothstein, and then (d) concludes with a rumination on the reach of quantitative (i.e., statistically-driven) versus qualitative claims regarding such things as “national metrical types.

Regulation der Proteasombiogenese in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Selektive Ubiquitin (Ub)-vermittelte Proteolyse ist der wichtigste Mechanismus im Abbau zytosolischer und nukleärer Proteine eukaryotischer Zellen. Substratproteine werden durch Komponenten des Ub-Systems erkannt und über interne Lysinreste mit Polyubiquitinketten verknüpft. Diese Polyubiquitinketten vermitteln die Bindung an das 26S-Proteasom, einem Komplex mit einer Masse von ca. 2MDa, der die Substratproteine entfaltet und hydrolysiert. Die Expression proteasomaler Gene wird durch einen autoregulatorischen Mechanismus in Abhängigkeit von der proteasomalen Aktivität reguliert. In dieser Arbeit konnte gezeigt werden, dass der Transkriptionsfaktor Rpn4 neben der basalen Expression die aktivitätsabhängige Expression proteasomaler Gene und des Polyubiquitin-Gens kontrolliert. Die Deletion von RPN4 verursachte eine Reduktion der proteasomalen Aktivität um 50% und führte in Zellen, in denen die Aktivität oder die Assemblierung der Proteasomen beeinträchtig war, zur Ausprägung starker Wachstumsdefekte. Die Analyse der Stabilität von Rpn4 in verschiedenen proteasomdefizienten Stämmen zeigte, dass Rpn4 selber ein Substrat des proteasomalen Proteinabbaus ist. Dies bewirkt eine direkte Abhängigkeit der Rpn4-Menge von der proteasomalen Aktivität in der Zelle, die eine Korrelation dieser Aktivität mit der Rpn4-kontrollierten Neusynthese von Proteasomen ermöglicht. Rpn4 ist ein ungewöhnliches Substrat des Proteasoms, das durch von Ubiquitin-abhängigen und -unabhängigen Mechanismen abgebaut wird. Durch ein selektionsbasiertes "Screening"-Verfahren konnten die Mutanten dor2 und dor3 (degradation of Rpn4) isoliert werden, die den Abbau von Rpn4 beeinträchtigen. In der dor2-Mutante scheint das Gen FHL1 betroffen zu sein, das für einen Transkriptionsfaktor kodiert, der an der Prozessierung ribosomaler RNA beteiligt ist. Die Identität des durch dor3 betroffenen Genes ist noch unbekannt, jedoch konnte gezeigt werden, dass hier spezifisch der Ubiquitin-abhängige Abbau von Rpn4 gestört ist. Neben der Kontrolle der Expression proteasomaler Gene ist Rpn4 auch Teil eines Netzwerks, das die zelluläre Antwort auf unterschiedliche Stressbedingungen reguliert, die die Beseitigung von DNA-Schäden einschließt. Die Auswirkungen von Substanzen, die solchen Stress hervorrufen, wurden am Beispiel von Methylmethansulfonat (MMS) und Koffein untersucht. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Zugabe von MMS zu einer Steigerung der RPN4-Genexpression führt, während die Zugabe von Koffein zu einem raschen Abbau von Rpn4 führt. Die Deletion von RPN4 führte zu einer starken Sensitivität gegen beide Substanzen. Die Überexpression der Gene YAP1 oder SSZ1, für die eine Funktion in der zellulären Antwort auf verschiedene Stressbedingungen beschrieben ist. bewirkte eine Suppression dieser Sensitivität. Die Analyse der Mechanismen, die der Regulation von Rpn4 zugrunde liegen, könnte zu interessanten Einblicken in das Zusammenspiel zwischen dem Ubiquitin/Proteasom-System und der zellulären Stressantwort führen

Rhythm histograms and musical meter: A corpus study of Malian percussion music

Studies of musical corpora have given empirical grounding to the various features that characterize particular musical styles and genres. Palmer & Krumhansl (1990) found that in Western classical music the likeliest places for a note to occur are the most strongly accented beats in a measure, and this was also found in subsequent studies using both Western classical and folk music corpora (Huron & Ommen, 2006; Temperley, 2010). We present a rhythmic analysis of a corpus of 15 performances of percussion music from Bamako, Mali. In our corpus, the relative frequency of note onsets in a given metrical position does not correspond to patterns of metrical accent, though there is a stable relationship between onset frequency and metrical position. The implications of this non-congruence between simple statistical likelihood and metrical structure for the ways in which meter and metrical accent may be learned and understood are discussed, along with importance of cross-cultural studies for psychological research

A Measurement of gamma from the Decays Bd(t) -> D(*)+ D(*)- and Bd -> Ds(*)+ D(*)-

Recently, it was proposed to use measurements of Bd(t) -> D(*)+ D(*)- and Bd -> Ds(*)+ D(*)- decays to measure the CP phase gamma. In this paper, we present the extraction of gamma using this method. We find that gamma is favored to lie in one of the ranges [19.4o - 80.6o] (+ 0o or 180o), [120o - 147o] (+ 0o or 180o), or [160o - 174o] (+ 0o or 180o) at 68% confidence level (the (+ 0o or 180o) represents an additional ambiguity for each range). These constraints come principally from the vector-vector final states; the vector-pseudoscalar decays improve the results only slightly. Although, with present data, the constraints disappear for larger confidence levels, this study does demonstrate the feasibility of the method. Strong constraints on gamma can be obtained with more data.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 4 figures (included

Analogy, Homology, and Rhythmic Phylogeny: Commentary on Adrian Poole's "Comparing Timeline Rhythms in Pygmy and Bushmen Music"

In his article "Comparing Timeline Rhythms in Pygmy and Bushmen Music," Adrian Poole uses computational phylogenetic analysis to assess the similarity between canonical rhythmic patterns from two African musical cultures. He then uses these analyses to evaluate previous claims of a common origin for their (now) distinct musical practices. Poole was unable to find clear evidence of a common origin, and here I provide additional analyses of these timelines casting further doubt on such claims. Instead, I offer a perspective from convergent evolution/sociobiology which can account for the broad similarities that exist between these two sets of timelines. I conclude with a critique of the claim of Poole and others that African timelines and the musical cultures in which they appear are especially resistant to change

Latest results from the MINOS experiment

The MINOS experiment utilizes the NuMI neutrino beam to study the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations. Muon neutrinos are sent over a baseline of 735 km, with a detector near the production point at Fermilab and one at the Soudan underground laboratory in northern Minnesota. By observing the {nu}{sub {mu}} disappearance characteristic of oscillations, MINOS can measure the oscillation parameters. MINOS has previously made the best measurement of the atmospheric-regime mass splitting to date. New results are presented in which the data-set is doubled. Further analysis improvements, and the inclusion of additional event samples, further improve the sensitivity to the oscillation parameters. The mixing angle {theta}{sub 13} is currently not measured to differ from zero. By searching for {nu}{sub e} appearance in the {nu}{sub {mu}} beam, MINOS is able to set new limits on the value of {theta}{sub 13}. An observation of the neutral current interaction rate at the far detector allows limits to be placed on the existence of sterile neutrinos. From September 2009 to March 2010, MINOS has taken data with a dedicated {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}} beam, allowing the first direct precision measurement of the antineutrino oscillation parameters in the atmospheric regime

Kulturelle Diversität in der empirischen Rhythmusforschung. Drei Analysen eines Audio-Korpus von Percussion-Ensemblemusik aus Mali

Die Erörterung kultureller Varianz sowohl zwischen als auch innerhalb von Gesellschaften leidet unter der Neigung, das je eigene kulturelle Umfeld als ›natürlich‹ wahrzunehmen. Diese Neigung ist in der Musikforschung nicht zuletzt als eurozentrisches Bias nach wie vor präsent. Unser Artikel möchte zu punktuellen Korrekturen dieses Bias im Feld der empirischen Rhythmusforschung beitragen. Wir analysieren einen Korpus von Audio-Aufnahmen aus Mali und untersuchen dabei das Verhältnis von Rhythmus und Metrum (Studie 1), den theoretischen Status ungleichmäßiger Grundschlagsunterteilung (›Swing-Timing‹, Studie 2) und die Interaktion musikalischer Rollen bei der Ensemble-Synchronisation (Studie 3). Discussions of cultural variation, both between and within societies, suffer from the disposition to conceive of one’s own cultural environment as ›natural.‹ This disposition is still present not least as a euro-centric bias in the study of music. Our article strives to offer a partial correction to the lingering euro-centric bias in the field of empirical rhythm research. We analyze a corpus of audio recordings from Mali, wherein we study three issues: rhythm-meter relations (study 1), the theoretical status of uneven beat subdivision or ›swing timing‹ (study 2), and the interaction amongst musical roles in ensemble synchronization (study 3)