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Fractionating the Musical Mind: Insights From Congenital Amusia

Grant reference: RES-061-25-0155

Conference paper/presentation details

Title Congenital amusia : is there a group with specific rhythm impairments?

Description Congenital amusia has been described as a pitch specific, musical processing deficit. It has been suggested that a deficit in which rhythm is affected but pitch is preserved does not exist. This study aimed to identify a group of people who suffered from this unusual problem, and look at the relationship between production and perception in these individuals. Participants were selected following online testing on pitch and rhythm tests taken from the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia. More than 20,000 people took this test online but only 11 were shown to be eligible for the study and show reliable selective deficits in rhythm perception. Following further testing in the lab 3 individuals scored below threshold on the rhythm subtest but above on pitch test composite scores. A tapping task was used to establish how a rhythm deficit might relate to rhythm production skills. This task involved spontaneous tapping, synchronization with auditory stimuli, and a continuation task. Changes were used in rhythm and pitch for increased complexity across trials and to establish patterns of deficits across the dysrhythmic group. 3 dysrhythmic subjects were identified and 38 controls were tested on both the MBEA and tapping task. No difference was found between groups in the spontaneous and continuation conditions. Large amounts of variance in the control data made it hard to compare the two groups effectively in the synchronization task. One observed difference was that dysrhythmics tapped at a higher hierarchical level from controls when attempting to synchronise with complex rhythms, suggesting a problem with extracting low level metre from these rhythms. While the small sample size is problematic and suggests the deficit is rare, the study did identify a small group of dysrhythmics and was able to draw some inferences about patterns of their deficit.

Url http://marcs.uws.edu.au/links/ICoMusic09/program.html

Language English

Primary contributor

Author Jacques Launay

Additional contributors

Co-author Lauren Stewart

Co-author Manon Grube

Co-author Guy Peryer

Additional details

Is this item peer reviewed? Yes

Other information Conference hosted by the University of New South Wales

Date of publication 03 December 2009

Conference event title International conference on music communication science

Conference location Sydney, Australia

Conference number 2nd

Conference date 03 December 2009

Cite this outcome

Citation Style:

Harvard

Launay, Jacques et al Congenital amusia : is there a group with specific rhythm impairments?. International conference on music communication science, 2nd, Sydney, Australia, 2009.

Vancouver

Launay Jacques et al. Congenital amusia : is there a group with specific rhythm impairments?. International conference on music communication science, 2nd, Sydney, Australia, 2009.