Beyond Onset Timing: Longer Sound Envelope Duration Enhances Neural Representation of the Musical Beat

Musical rhythm is often experienced with a periodic beat, serving as a temporal reference for coordination with the rhythm. Thus far, models of beat processing have mainly relied on representing sensory inputs as patterns of onset timing, with limited consideration of other sensory features. Here, we challenge this view by showing that the internal representation of beat is affected by other temporal features of the stimulus beyond onset timing alone. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while participants listened to rhythmic sequences designed to elicit a beat. Across conditions, we manipulated the duration of the tones conveying the rhythms, while keeping all other parameters identical, including overall intensity, speed, and rhythmic pattern structure. Crucially, the beat periodicity was enhanced in neural activity with increased sound duration, even though the beat periodicity was not prominent in the acoustic features, thus ruling out basic sensory confounds. These results demonstrate the preferential role of longer sound durations in fostering temporal scaffolding processes that integrate fast rhythmic inputs into behavior-relevant internal structures such as the beat. More generally, our findings are compatible with a holistic processing account whereby a range of features beyond onset timing may be integrated into a neural representation of rhythm. Graphical Abstract: Fig. 2EEG was recorded while listeners heard rhythmic sequences eliciting a beat. Sound duration (sonic duty cycle) was varied across four conditions while speed, pattern, and intensity stayed constant. Beat-related EEG responses increased with longer sounds, and were enhanced in all conditions compared to auditory nerve model envelopes, which did not show prominent energy at the beat periodicity, ruling out sensory confounds. Results support holistic rhythm processing beyond onset timing alone. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=101 SRC="FIGDIR/small/721298v1_fig2.gif" ALT="Figure 2"> View larger version (27K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@10a0599org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@f5a95forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@42d1ceorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@dc58a7_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOFigure 2.C_FLOATNO EEG and auditory nerve model output analysis based on magnitude spectrum and autocorrelation. Each row represents a duty cycle condition. The two columns on the left represent the magnitude spectrum-based analysis. The first column represents the group-level averaged magnitude spectra at a pool of fronto-central electrodes, across conditions. Beat-related frequencies are shown in red, and beat-unrelated frequencies are shown in blue. Scalp topographies of the neural activity measured at the average magnitudes of beat-related (in red circle) and unrelated (in blue circle) frequencies are represented as insets. The second column represents the normalized magnitude spectra obtained from the auditory nerve model output for each duty cycle sequence. The two columns on the right represent the autocorrelation-based analysis (for visualization purposes, only a subset of lags from 0 to 2.4 s corresponding to the pattern duration is shown). The first column represents the group-level averaged autocorrelation function measured from the same pool of fronto-central electrodes, across conditions. Beat-related lags are shown in red, and beat-unrelated lags are shown in blue. The second column represents the autocorrelation function of the auditory nerve model output for each duty cycle sequence. C_FIG