Semantics of rhythmic pulsations perception

Studies on semantics while perceiving music currently focus on the tonal structure of compositions. The complexity of a music composition as a unique event limits the research on acoustic perception mechanisms, particularly the temporal aspect. The author proposes a new method based on the construction of primitive rhythms. Signals with fixed intensity, form and spectrum that lasted 50, 150, and 300 msec were divided by pauses of different length ranging from 100 to 2,000 msec. Each sequence looped forming primitive rhythm. A total of 45 stimuli were evaluated by 39 subjects on the 10 semantic differential scales. Most of the subjective scales represented the dimension of expectation - tension and highly correlated with themselves and with the period (tempo). Correlations with the fill factor were mostly insignificant. Dependencies of the subjective scales on period were nonlinear. Notwithstanding the duration of the signal (i.e. in all three series), there was one turning point at about 950-1,050 msec characterized by a multi-directional trend with the more or less significant rise and fall resulted from a constant decrease of tension and the growth of pause.