Abstract

The current study assessed the importance of specialized musical experience in rhythm perception and production by comparing the rhythm abilities of four groups of musicians. Drummers, singers, pianists and string players performed four different rhythm tasks: the Rhythm Synchronization task, the Beat Synchronization task, the Tap-Continuation task and the Beat Alignment Perception Test. This battery of rhythm and beat-based tasks were used to assess the effects of specific musical experience on both higher level rhythm processing and basic sensorimotor synchronization. Within-group differences in performance showed that factors such as meter, metrical complexity, tempo and beat phase significantly affected the ability to perceive and synchronize taps to rhythm or beat. Interestingly, there were no between-group differences in performance for any of the tasks except the basic Tap-Continuation task which tested the ability to maintain a target tapping tempo without the aid of a metronome. When un-paced tapping variability was split into motor and timing variability using the Wing-Kristofferson model (1973), drummers were shown to have the lowest timer variability while pianists had the lowest motor variability. These results suggest that general musical experience is more important than specialized musical experience with regards to higher cognitive processing of rhythms, whereas low-level cognitive processes and bottom-up motor processes are affected uniquely by specialized experience.