Graduate School of Informatics /Cognitive Science

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Çağdaş Bostancı will defend his thesis.

Title: TEMPORAL AND STRUCTURAL PERCEPTION OF RHYTHMIC IRREGULARITIES

Date: 29th May 2018

Time: 09:30 AM

Place: B-116

Thesis Abstract :Time perception studies often seek for a timing mechanism that can explain temporal judgments in a general way. In search of such a model, environmental, contextual and subjective factors affecting temporal judgments should be taken into account as well. The present study provides a critical evolution of existing timing models by comparing the interval processing and production strategies of musicians and non-musicians. The study contains 3 experiments: Experiment 1 is a perceptual comparison task, Experiment 2 is a duration reproduction task and Experiment 3 is a rhythm reproduction task. The contrasts between the two groups are believed to be captured by participants’ initial reactions to rhythmic structures. For that purpose, short scale (4 beat) rhythmic samples are used in the experiments. Standard samples are regular 4 beat rhythms. Test samples include regular and irregular rhythms. The irregular conditions are prepared by changing the temporal position of the second beat of the regular rhythms. Early and late second beats in these irregular samples have the same temporal distance from the expected beat. Hence, the expectancy violation reflects any differences between early and late oddball stimuli. The experimental analyses suggest an asymmetry between early and late oddballs in participants’ initial reactions to such expectancy violations, in terms of their perceptual comparison of rhythms, as well as their duration and rhythm (re)production. Moreover, it provides evidence for different strategies used by participant groups in order to cope with rhythmic irregularities.