Learning Time Patterns

Abstract

This chapter is important in that it lays a foundation for claims throughout this book that entrainment serves a platform for learning. In this chapter, this idea is developed in the context of learning categories of meter (e.g., duple meter vs. triple meter). The key difference is that entrainment depends on coupling parameters supplied by external driving rhythm force, whereas learning depends on a binding parameter which is strengthened simply by repeated synchronous activity of two or more oscillations. Against a backdrop of evidence indicating that musicians especially possess skill in recognizing metric categories, this chapter develops the coupling–binding distinction with the aim of showing that what people learn when exposed to metrical time patterns are global attractors instilled by learning a variety of different instances in a given metric category.