Conveners
Symposia: The Beat and Beyond: Unveiling the Roots, Development, and Applications of Human Musical Rhythm
- Carlotta Lega (University of Pavia)
From tapping our foot while we listen to our preferred music to coordinating movements with others, rhythm plays a vital role in our lives. This symposium offers a multifaceted exploration of rhythm perception and performance, examining its evolutionary origins (phylogeny), development throughout life (ontogeny), and potential for clinical applications. Andrea Ravignani (Sapienza University of...
Who’s got rhythm? Why are we such musical, chatty animals? Human music and speech, almost anomalies for evolutionary biology, both feature rhythm among their building blocks. Many hypotheses try to explain the origins of rhythm capacities, but few are empirically tested and compared. Because music and speech do not fossilize, the comparative approach provides a powerful tool to tap into human...
Rhythm perception and production start very early in human ontogeny as already the foetus can appreciate rhythmic patterns (e.g., maternal movements) and produce rhythmic behaviours (e.g., Non-Nutritive Sucking, NNS). This early sensitivity to rhythm is thought to be crucial for later development of various cognitive functions, including language, but the link to attention is unclear. Here, we...
Rhythm naturally emerges in humans from infancy and significantly impacts various cognitive functions (e.g., memory, attention) and emotional processes (e.g., emotions, sense of connection). Moreover, it is thought to modulate music reward responses through its strong movement-inducing component. Consistent evidence has highlighted the pivotal role of rhythm complexity in eliciting pleasurable...
Based on the transfer effects of music training on the phonological and reading abilities of children with dyslexia, a computerized rhythmic intervention—the Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT)—was developed, in which reading exercises are combined with a rhythmic synchronization task. This rehabilitation program was previously tested in multiple controlled clinical trials, which confirmed its...
