Beat deafness: développement d'un outil de dépistage et nouveaux cas
Beat deafness is a form of congenital amusia related to time that has been documented through a single case very recently (Phillips-Silver et al., 2011). The main goal of this study was to identify new cases. Toward this goal, we screened for deficits in beat perception and synchronization in a sample of 100 healthy university students. We assessed perception, first with an on-line test in which participants had to detect perturbations in metric structure, then with a task in which participants had to judge whether short piano pieces were marches (binary metrical structure) or waltzes (ternary metrical structure). We assessed synchronization with a finger tapping task in which participants had to tap to the strong beats of the same marches and waltzes. Four participants showed a parallel impairment in both perception and synchronization assessments and are therefore considered as new beat-deaf cases.
Pulsation Congenital amusia Beat deafness Beat Metre Synchronization