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Three studies investigated the imitation of several periodically repeating simple temporal patterns consisting of 2 or more intervals varying in their duration ratios. 60 undergraduates served as Ss. Errors that Ss typically made in their imitations and the systematic changes that occurred during repeated imitations indicated that both musically trained and untrained Ss mapped temporal sequences onto an interval structure the nature of which was revealed by studying which patterns were correctly and incorrectly reproduced. A "beat-based" model for the perception of temporal sequences is proposed. This model states that the 1st step in the processing of a temporal sequence consists of a segmentation of the sequence into equal intervals bordered by events. This interval is called the "beat interval" (BI). How listeners select this BI is only partly understood. In a 2nd step, intervals smaller than the BI are expressed as a subdivision of the BI in which they occur. The number of within-beat structures that can be represented in the model is, however, limited. Specifically, only BIs that are subdivided into either equal intervals or intervals in a 1:2 ratio fit within the model. The partially hierarchical model proposed, though in need of further elaborations, shows why the number of temporal patterns that can be correctly conceptualized is limited. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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