Influence of the rhythmical complexity variations of a musical excerpt on the synchronisation performance and liking

This work aims at studying the relationship between rhythmical complexity, synchronisation and liking evaluation of an italian pop music excerpt. Our interest concerns two different areas of research. The first one focuses on the relationship between rhythm and synchronisation (Drake, Penel & Bigand, 2000; Snyder & Krumhansl, 2001); the second one examines the relationship between rhythmical complexity and liking (Heyduk, 1975; Smith & Melara, 1990; North & Haargraves, 1998). 50 non-musical expert students participated to the experimental session, which was constituted by three different phases: the synchronisation performance to 6 versions of the same excerpt, the original version in 16mo (1), in fouth (2), in 8vo (3) in 32mo (4) and two versions with different kinds of contra time (5 and 6), studied with two indexes: R.I (regularity index) and I.R.I (irregularity index); the evaluation of the synchronisation (scale 1-10); hearing and liking evaluation on a 10 point rating scale of the versions of the excerpt. The results show that, according to the information theory, I.R and I.R.I. reach high values for excerpt number 4, that is the most complex version. Anyway other data (as for example the high I.I.R. level of excerpt number 2) indicate some contradictions that need further investigations. The evaluation of synchronisation and liking data show in general clear differences between “the” complex version (number 4) and all the other