A Sensory-Motor Theory of Rhythm, Time Perception and Beat Induction

In this paper, we develop further a sensory-motor theory of rhythm, time perception and beat induction. We account for these phenomena by the interaction of sensory systems, which represent temporal information in terms of the power spectrum of the sensory image, and the motor system, which has certain natural frequencies. The central assumption is that beat induction is not a passive process but, rather, a form of sensory-guided action involving all the sensory and motor components that that entails, i.e., major portions of the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system which it controls. Even if the musculoskeletal system (‘the plant’, to use the terminology of control theory) is not activated, i.e., there is no motor output, the higher supraspinal levels of the system (‘the controller’) are. To be more specific, the principal agent mediating beat induction is the internal representation of the musculoskeletal system and its dynamic properties which the ‘controller’ requires as a ‘feedforward’ model....