Neural mechanisms of rhythm perception: present findings and future directions

The capacity to synchronize movements to the beat in music is a complex, and apparently uniquely human characteristic. Synchronizing movements to the beat requires beat perception, which entails prediction of future beats in rhythmic sequences of temporal intervals. Absolute timing mechanisms, where patterns of temporal intervals are encoded as a series of absolute durations, cannot fully explain beat perception. Beat perception seems better accounted for by relative timing mechanisms, where temporal intervals of a pattern are coded relative to a periodic beat interval. Evidence from behavioral, neuroimaging, brain stimulation and neuronal cell recording studies suggests a functional dissociation between the neural substrates of absolute and relative timing. This chapter reviews current findings on relative timing in the context of rhythm and beat perception.