Musical beat processing: cognitive, neural, and cross-species perspectives
A core feature of human music cognition is the ability to perceive a periodic underlying beat in complex rhythmic sequences.  Beat perception has an intimate link to movement, scaffolding synchronized movements to music among performers and listeners.  Growing evidence from cognitive neuroscience points to an important role for the motor system in beat perception, even in the absence of overt movement. Several researchers have hypothesized that auditory-motor interactions play a causal role in the brain’s ability to predict beat timing. In this presentation I will discuss ideas for the role that specific motor structures play in predicting the timing of beats (even in the absence of movement), describe some surprising aspects of cross-species findings on beat processing,  and introduce the phenomenon of musical “beat deafness”, in order to spark discussion of how this deficit in beat perception and synchronization may relate to metacognition.

Tufts University

https://as.tufts.edu/psychology/people/faculty/aniruddh-patel