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We hear the melody in music, but we feel the beat. People in all cultures move their bodies to the rhythms of music, whether drumming, singing, dancing, or rocking an infant (1). Body movement involves motor, proprioceptive (perception of body position), vestibular (perception of movement and balance), visual, and auditory systems (2), but few studies have examined auditory-vestibular interactions.
The ability to feel and interpret the strong and weak beats in a rhythm pattern allows people to move and dance in time to music. Typically, the strong beats of a rhythm pattern are played louder, longer, or both, and the metrical structure (what you move to) is derived from, and consistent with, these physical accents (3). However, in an ambiguous rhythm pattern with no physical accents, different movements might give rise to different metrical interpretations. In other words, how we move may influence what we hear.
We tested the hypothesis that movement influences the auditory encoding of rhythm patterns in human infants. In experiment 1, we trained 7-month-olds by having them listen to a 2-min repetition of an ambiguous (without accented beats) rhythm pattern (Fig. 1A, row 1, and sound file S1). Half of the infants were bounced on every second beat, and half on every third beat. After training, infants' listening preferences were tested for two auditory versions of the rhythm...