Crossmodal Rhythm Perception

Research on rhythm perception has mostly been focused on the auditory and visual modalities. Previous studies have shown that the auditory modality dominates rhythm perception. Rhythms can also be perceived through the tactile senses, for example, as vibrations, but only few studies exist. We investigated unimodal and crossmodal rhythm perception with auditory, tactile, and visual modalities. Pairs of rhythm patterns were presented to the subject who made a same-different judgment. We used all possible combinations of the three modalities. The results showed that the unimodal auditory condition had the highest rate (79.2%) of correct responses. The unimodal tactile condition (75.0%) and the auditory-tactile condition (74.2%) were close. The average rate remained under 61.7% when the visual modality was involved. The results confirmed that auditory and tactile modalities are suitable for presenting rhythmic information, and they are also preferred by the users.