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Rhythm plays an important role in language perception and learning, with infants perceiving rhythmic differences across languages at birth. While the mechanisms underlying rhythm perception in speech remain unclear, one interesting possibility is that these mechanisms are similar to those involved in the perception of musical rhythm. In this work, we adopt a model originally designed for musical rhythm to simulate speech rhythm perception. We show that this model replicates the behavioral results of language discrimination in newborns, and outperforms an existing model of infant language discrimination. We also find that percussives — fast-changing components in the acoustics — are necessary for distinguishing languages of different rhythms, which suggests that percussives are essential for rhythm perception. Our music-inspired model of speech rhythm may be seen as a first step towards a unified theory of how rhythm is represented in speech and music.
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Bouncing the network: A dynamical systems model of auditory–vestibular interactions underlying infants’ perception of musical rhythm
Abstract Previous work suggests that auditory–vestibular interactions, which emerge during bodily movement to music, can influence the perception of musical rhythm. In a seminal study on the ontogeny of musical rhythm, Phillips‐Silver and Trainor (2005) found that bouncing infants to an unaccented rhythm influenced infants’ perceptual preferences for accented rhythms that matched the rate of bouncing. In the current study, we ask whether nascent, diffuse coupling between auditory and motor systems is sufficient to bootstrap short‐term Hebbian plasticity in the auditory system and explain infants’ preferences for accented rhythms thought to arise from auditory–vestibular interactions. First, we specify a nonlinear, dynamical system in which two oscillatory neural networks, representing developmentally nascent auditory and motor systems, interact through weak, non‐specific coupling. The auditory network was equipped with short‐term Hebbian plasticity, allowing the auditory network to tune its intrinsic resonant properties. Next, we simulate the effect of vestibular input (e.g., infant bouncing) on infants’ perceptual preferences for accented rhythms. We found that simultaneous auditory–vestibular training shaped the model's response to musical rhythm, enhancing vestibular‐related frequencies in auditory‐network activity. Moreover, simultaneous auditory–vestibular training, relative to auditory‐ or vestibular‐only training, facilitated short‐term auditory plasticity in the model, producing stronger oscillator connections in the auditory network. Finally, when tested on a musical rhythm, models which received simultaneous auditory–vestibular training, but not models that received auditory‐ or vestibular‐only training, resonated strongly at frequencies related to their “bouncing,” a finding qualitatively similar to infants’ preferences for accented rhythms that matched the rate of infant bouncing.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1735225
- PAR ID:
- 10449560
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Developmental Science
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1363-755X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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