ArticleScience advances2025
Revealing rhythm categorization in human brain activity.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cortico-striatal network architecture shapes rhythmic biases in music.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Embodied Responses to Harmony and (Poly)Rhythm: An Integrated Ratio-Based Perception-Action Framework.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
- Lateralised neural mechanisms facilitate auditory self-other distinction and coordination in human dyads.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Universal and Cross-Cultural Variations in Audio-Motor Synchronization Between French and Indian Participants.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Polyrhythms in the Brain: Metrical Priming, Acoustic Balance, and Perceptual Biases.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- The Emergence of a Universal Rhythmic Feature: Simple Models Can Produce Categorical Rhythms.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Humans across cultures show an outstanding capacity to perceive, learn, and produce musical rhythms. These skills rely on mapping the infinite space of possible rhythmic sensory inputs onto a finite set of internal rhythm categories. What is the nature of the brain processes underlying rhythm categorization? We used electroencephalography to measure brain activity as human participants listened to a continuum of rhythmic sequences characterized by repeating patterns of two interonset intervals. Using frequency and representational similarity analyses, we show that brain activity does not merely track the temporal structure of rhythmic inputs but, instead, produces categorical representation of rhythms. These neural rhythm categories arise automatically, independent of any motor- or timing-related tasks, yet exhibit strong similarity with categorization observed in overt behavior. Together, these results and methodological advances constitute a critical step toward understanding the biological roots and diversity of musical behaviors across cultures.
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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.