ArticleFrontiers in systems neuroscience2014
The evolutionary neuroscience of musical beat perception: the Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) hypothesis.
Article in Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 219 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
219 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 522 citations in OpenAlex.
- Embodying Time in the Brain: A Multi-Dimensional Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis of 95 Duration Processing Studies.Neuropsychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Musical development during adolescence: Perceptual skills, cognitive resources, and musical training.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2022Pooled it
- The rediscovered motor-related area 55b emerges as a core hub of music perception.Communications biology · 2022Pooled it
- Identifying a brain network for musical rhythm: A functional neuroimaging meta-analysis and systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Recruitment of the motor system during music listening: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI data.PloS one · 2018Pooled it
- Can you beat the music? Validation of a gamified rhythmic training in children with ADHD.Behavior research methods · 2025Trial
- Musical Training Facilitates Exogenous Temporal Attention via Delta Phase Entrainment within a Sensorimotor Network.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Intrinsic Rhythmicity Predicts Synchronization-Continuation Entrainment Performance.Scientific reports · 2018Trial
- Neural network retuning and neural predictors of learning success associated with cello training.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Trial
- Musical intervention enhances infants' neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Trial
- Modeling the rhythmic complexity of professional drumming with an oscillation-driven reservoir computer.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2026Article
- Cortico-striatal network architecture shapes rhythmic biases in music.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Simulated field potentials capture multiple simultaneous processes underlying human temporal attention.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Reduced Motor Preparation and Altered EEG Signatures of Prediction in Autistic Adults.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Critical Review on the Development and Evolution of Beat Perception.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
- Development of auditory and spontaneous movement responses to music over the first postnatal year.eLife · 2026Article
- The relationship between individual sensitivity to music reward and rhythmic processing.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Manifolds in the Medial Premotor Cortex During Switching From Attending to Tapping to a Metronome.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Words and Meters: Neural Evidence for a Connection Between Individual Differences in Statistical Learning and Rhythmic Ability in Infancy.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Identification of Cortices with Characteristics of Rhythmic Entrainment and Its Periodicity.Experimental neurobiology · 2026Article
159 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
every human culture has some form of music with a beata perceived periodic pulse that structures the perception of musical rhythm and which serves as a framework for synchronized movement to music. What are the neural mechanisms of musical beat perception, and how did they evolve? One view, which dates back to Darwin and implicitly informs some current models of beat perception, is that the relevant neural mechanisms are relatively general and are widespread among animal species. On the basis of recent neural and cross-species data on musical beat processing, this paper argues for a different view. Here we argue that beat perception is a complex brain function involving temporally-precise communication between auditory regions and motor planning regions of the cortex (even in the absence of overt movement). More specifically, we propose that simulation of periodic movement in motor planning regions provides a neural signal that helps the auditory system predict the timing of upcoming beats. This "action simulation for auditory prediction" (ASAP) hypothesis leads to testable predictions. We further suggest that ASAP relies on dorsal auditory pathway connections between auditory regions and motor planning regions via the parietal cortex, and suggest that these connections may be stronger in humans than in non-human primates due to the evolution of vocal learning in our lineage. This suggestion motivates cross-species research to determine which species are capable of human-like beat perception, i.e., beat perception that involves accurate temporal prediction of beat times across a fairly broad range of tempi.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.