ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study is to review and synthesize the related research to provide a broad overview of the psychological principles regarding the rhythmic response and the perception of musical rhythm. This study was undertaken to fulfill the need to present the theoretical explanations of a variety of psychological phenomena involved in the rhythmic experience. The intent of the study is to provide the researchers with comprehensive bibliographic data which can be used as a valuable resource in organizing their work and to help the music educators gain some insight which should be considered for the development of rhythmic sense in their music teaching. After an extensive examination, it is discovered that a significant amount of research has been published in a wide variety of journals. And various rhythmic researches have been undertaken by employing different objectives and different styles of investigation. The majority of rhythm studies are experimental in nature. Research findings collected from a vast number of investigations were thoroughly examined and analyzed to provide an experimental evidence. And also the statements emphasized by the profession in this research field were summarized. Numerous aspects of the psychological phenomena underlying rhythmic experience were discussed in the study. The major aspects discussed in the study are as follows : (1) the nature of rhythm to clarify some of the confusion regarding the basic concepts of rhythm and the definitions of the various terms, (2) the function of rhythm (3) rhythmic structures in music such as beat, pulse, duration, meter, rhythmic pattern, and tempo, (4) the characteristics of rhythmic experience including subjective rhythmization, rhythmic grouping, rhythmic fission, the Gestalt principles of grouping, accentuation, anticipation, and synchronization, (5) the characteristics of time perception including JND (Just Noticeable Difference), the psychological present, spontaneous tempo, prefered tempo, onthological versus virtual time, and tempo perception, (6) the psychological elements of the rhythmic response and the rhythmic experience, (7) four response theories including instinctive theory , physiological theory , motor theory , and learned response theory , and (8) the perception of musical rhythms including simple rhythmic patterns, complex rhythmic patterns, and polyrhythm. According to the review of the related studies, rhythm has not been as thoroughly studied as pich. After a remarkable begynning in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the experimental research of rhythmic perception had been neglected during the early decades of this century and had gained a renewed interest from the 1950s. Many researchers indicate that one of the difficulties in conducting rhythm research is due to the elaboration and the complexity of cognitive process and perceptual system involved in the processing of temporal and rhythmic information. In the most of the investigations, the tasks required to the subjects for evaluating rhythmic discrimination capability are such as tapping along with a steady beat pattern or judging the relative durations of successive intervals in pairs. A considerable amount of an experimental research on rhythm has been devoted to explore the cognitive proccess of psychological organization of musical time and the lisener`s perception of rhythmic patterns. Some of the major findings in these areas are summarized as follows : (1) Patterns having temporal ratios of 2 : 1 between their elements are easy to perceive and reproduce. (2) There are two steps involved in the perceptual encoding of rhythmic pattern : the beat framework and its rhythmic subdivisions. (3) Rhythms are hierarchical structures. Thus complex rhythmic patterns are identified by the layered structure. (4) Different stratigies are employed to respond the complex polyrhythm and affected by tempo. (5) Long notes tend to be heard as initiating major metric