The Tick Tock Effect

[john lamb]

I just got this back, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'd love to know what you guys think about it - what can be improved? Does it make the book sound interesting?

in other news, I just secured distribution in Brazil and the books (both) are getting translated now.

[Old Pit Guy]

I like the promo, it's very effective. Can you link to more information concerning the "tick tock effect?" I'm hearing two distinct sounds when I listen to any mechanical clock, but let's say the Effect is true: How is it the brain is synchronized from the get on tick 2 of the clock?

[Old Pit Guy]

-Double post-

[john lamb]

Well, can't say for sure.... but there are a few guesses .

(1) Trained musicians' brains synchronize faster. In fact, musician's brains will synchronize with each other before they play a note.

(2) There is a weird aspect of perception that we actually backfill our experience a short period... The time it takes for the information to travel through our sensors and nerves to the brain to get processed is unacceptably large. We live in the present and react in the present, but the literal amount of time it takes for us to react doesn't fit, so therefore what we perceive has to contain a lot of after-the-fact story telling. Its weird, but logically sound. No way to prove that, though, at present. Just a theory the resolve the observed phenomena and our perceived experience with it.

(3) Expectation. If you are expecting to hear something, you'll hear it.

(4) Maybe the mechanical devices you are listening to really do have a difference in tone. Some do. Many do. Nevertheless, we will split the ticking into tick-tock even if it is totally equal (this has been VERY well studied, for almost 150 years now) Faster ticks may become 6/8 or another metrical grouping, and you can induce a particular way of hearing it by differentiating the sounds by modulating the tone, volume or moving one ahead or behind the beat.

[Steve Holmes]

Great job on the trailer and congrats on the book!

[Old Pit Guy]

Well, I'm going with the first sentence in # 4 as the explanation to what I'm hearing when I hear the first two or four ticks of a mechanical clock. Here's the thing, I'll need some evidence. It's that simple. I couldn't find anything about this "tick-tock effect" using google other than your mention of it on a few drum forums, and I don't think that's how science works. You state that this phenomena has been "VERY well studied for 150 years." Link us to some of it and that's that.

What concerns me is that I posed a very simple question about the time necessary for the Tick-Tock Effect to take place. In my case, and I'll say most everyone's case, the sound of a clock within the first two ticks is heard as two distinct tones - the sound of a clock. I'm saying because it is a clock and that's how mechanical clocks sound. I'm not asserting what makes the strokes sound different, you are. With a theory. But then you provide "guesses" as to why that might be?

Uh … dude.

Well, can't say for sure.... but there are a few guesses .

(1) Trained musicians' brains synchronize faster. In fact, musician's brains will synchronize with each other before they play a note.

(2) There is a weird aspect of perception that we actually backfill our experience a short period... The time it takes for the information to travel through our sensors and nerves to the brain to get processed is unacceptably large. We live in the present and react in the present, but the literal amount of time it takes for us to react doesn't fit, so therefore what we perceive has to contain a lot of after-the-fact story telling. Its weird, but logically sound. No way to prove that, though, at present. Just a theory the resolve the observed phenomena and our perceived experience with it.

(3) Expectation. If you are expecting to hear something, you'll hear it.

(4) Maybe the mechanical devices you are listening to really do have a difference in tone. Some do. Many do. Nevertheless, we will split the ticking into tick-tock even if it is totally equal (this has been VERY well studied, for almost 150 years now) Faster ticks may become 6/8 or another metrical grouping, and you can induce a particular way of hearing it by differentiating the sounds by modulating the tone, volume or moving one ahead or behind the beat.

[john lamb]

That shouldn't worry you because the question is not so simple. People are not machines and there is no hard and fast rule that says it take .753 seconds for the brain to entrain to a steady pulse of 60bpm. I cannot know what makes you tick (pun intended) I cannot know your particular experience and environment. These things matter, and these require my "guesses". If I were to be strictly scintific about the matter, I'd just say "It varies."

As far as evidence, any textbook on music perception will have a section on this. I have many citations listed in my book. I can dig some out for you if you like, or you can just search Google Scholar for it yourself, since you seem to be the type who will want to do his own research on the topic. I get the feeling that you'd want a second opinion no matter what I posted.

As far as googling the "Tick Tock Effect" ... you won't find anything because I named it that. I didn't make up the use of the clock to describe the effect, but I did name it the "Tick Tock Effect" If you have studied music theory at the University (or especially taught!) you are (in my experience) likely to viscerally dislike the concept as it runs counter to the very basis of metrical theory (which is based on the work of Lehrdahl + Jackendoff). Current metrical theory holds that there are strong and weak beats. ANy musician knows this is unsatisfactory. A backbeat is not a weak downbeat. It has a different feeling all together.

The downbeat (or "tick") has a feeling of weight, or as Efrain Toro says, gravity. The backbeat (or "tock") has a feeling of lightness, or to again quote Efrain Toro, "antigravity." The music is felt to "swing" back and forth between the two. They are not the same. We feel them this way because we synchronize(entrain) to them. The more strongly we synchronize, the more strongly we hear the tick-tock, and the stronger the groove of the song is.

Another way to think about it is that when we listen to music, music changes us. The synchronization is a biological change created by music. It is the #1 way that music affects us, biologically speaking. (not counting possible cultural/experiential meanings of music... such as hearing the song your last girlfriend cheated on you to, etc) The synchronization is associated with groove rankings - so that when people say the songs grooves harder, their brains synchronize more strongly. (again, start going the the bibliography in the book if you want) ... but for me, most importantly, I have a long list of great musicians who tell me "That's exactly right" and "Thats a great way to explain it." Occasionally, I find people that know all about this already, even the tick-tock affect, and they aren't scientists. They are just good musicians who are observant and they see it for themselves. The best musicians are often the most observant (a.k.a. they listen well)

Unfortunately, much of what is taught at the University about rhythm isn't very helpful and distracts young musicians (such as my former self) from getting what is really going on.

[Kurtis]

Cool topic. I have this relatively old clock and where ever we live ( we seem to move a lot) it goes in the living room. I have taken many naps when it's quiet and listen to this tick tock annoyance. Trying to fall asleep to a clock tick tocking away is annoying. Now that I think about it the ticks and tocks sometimes all sound different. It's an old clock. Sometimes it misses a tick or a tock. The ticks vary. But most times all the ticks sound the same. I guess this happens when I have a fresh battery in it. cheers to 60bpm.

[Old Pit Guy]

That shouldn't worry you because the question is not so simple. People are not machines and there is no hard and fast rule that says it take .753 seconds for the brain to entrain to a steady pulse of 60bpm. I cannot know what makes you tick (pun intended) I cannot know your particular experience and environment. These things matter, and these require my "guesses". If I were to be strictly scintific about the matter, I'd just say "It varies."

What I'm saying is actually very simple, and it's in response to what you claim in the video (google transcription):

0:05 While we often hear tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, in actuality every tick is identical.
0:12 Why do we hear two different [sounds] when really there is only one?
0:17 The reason has to do with how the brain perceives music.
0:21 Musical rhythm acts like a drill sergeant,synchronizing the brain to its beat.
0:26 When we listen to the ticking of the clock, the brain synchronizes and the neurons begin
0:29 to fire in time with the music. When the brain is synchronized with the music, it creates
0:34 the "tick-tock effect."
0:36 This "tick-tock effect" is central to understanding what rhythm is, how it works, and how to make better music.

"In actuality" every tick is not identical. Mechanical clocks, whether constructed with a pendulum or gear/pawl system, make two distinct sounds. By predicating your Tick-Tock theory on an erroneous assertion, you've invalidated the entire theory. That's how science works. I understand your work, and it's very interesting, but naming something an "effect" without substantive supporting evidence, not to mention basing a book on it as fact, hit me sideways. Sorry, it just did.

Try this: Listen to an online metronome with identical sounds for each beat.

http://www.metronomeonline.com

Set it to 120 and listen. Then set it to 60. I've sent this link to a few people. They all hear one beat at the faster speed, and two at a speed normally associated with a clock. Some hear a tick-tock effect at speeds at or near 60 bpm. Wouldn't that suggest conditioning just as strongly as your neurons firing in sync to understand music theory? Occam.

[john lamb]

I understand your skepticism, but honestly, the research on this goes back to the 19th century. Grab ANY textbook on music perception. I'm looking for a chart I saw in one text that explains everything - I'll post it when I remember which book it comes from. I think it is from this one:

Jones, M. R., Fay, R. R., & Popper, A. N. (Eds.). (2010). Music perception. Springer.

FYI, we will hear a tick-tock in any pulse from 20ish-300ish bpm. Look up Justin London's work. He's got a lot of books and info on this stuff. Much of it reasonably accessible (although he still refers to tempos as the time between beats (Interonset Interval or IOI), not the number of beats per minute(BPM)) as per the standard in his field, so you'll have to bring a calculator)

Most clocks really don't make any difference, and many of the ones that do make barely any difference. And yes, I just heard a tick-tock with the online metronome, starting immediately.


Here is my bibliography for your perusing pleasure.

Selected Bibliography

Bader, R. (2013). Rhythm. In Nonlinearities and Synchronization in Musical Acoustics and Music Psychology (pp. 381-402). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Besson, M., Schön, D., Moreno, S., Santos, A., & Magne, C. (2007). Influence of musical expertise and musical training on pitch processing in music and language. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 25(3), 399-410.

Bilhartz, T. D., Bruhn, R. A., & Olson, J. E. (1999). The effect of early music training on child cognitive development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 20(4), 615-636.

Bispham, J. (2006). Rhythm in music: What is it? Who has it? And why?. Music Perception, 24(2), 125-134.

Bolton, T. L. (1894). Rhythm. The American Journal of Psychology, 145-238.

Butler, M. J. (2006). Unlocking the groove: rhythm, meter, and musical design in electronic dance music. Indiana University Press.

Caldwell, K., Harrison, M., Adams, M., Quin, R. H., & Greeson, J. (2010). Developing mindfulness in college students through movement-based courses: effects on self-regulatory self-efficacy, mood, stress, and sleep quality. Journal of American College Health, 58(5), 433-442.

Cheek, J. M., & Smith, L. R. (1999). Music training and mathematics achievement. Adolescence, 34, 759-762.

Clayton, M., Sager, R., & Will, U. (2005). In time with the music: The concept of entrainment and its significance for ethnomusicology. In European meetings in ethnomusicology (Vol. 11, pp. 3-142).

Clynes, M. (1982). Music, mind, and brain: The neuropsychology of music (Vol. 94). Plenum Pub Corp.

DeNora, T. (2000). Music in everyday life. Cambridge University Press.

Eck, D. S. (2002). Meter through synchrony: processing rhythmical patterns with relaxation oscillators (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).
Franklin, M. S., Moore, K. S., Yip, C. Y., Jonides, J., Rattray, K., & Moher, J. (2008). The effects of musical training on verbal memory. Psychology of Music,36(3), 353-365.

Fujioka, T., Ross, B., Kakigi, R., Pantev, C., & Trainor, L. J. (2006). One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain, 129(10), 2593-2608.
Gardiner, M. F., Fox, A., Knowles, F., & Jeffrey, D. (1996). Learning improved by arts training. Nature; Nature.

Gasser, M., Eck, D., & Port, R. (1999). Meter as mechanism: A neural network model that learns metrical patterns. Connection Science, 11(2), 187-216.

Gordon, R. L., Magne, C. L., & Large, E. W. (2011). EEG Correlates of Song Prosody: a new look at the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm. Frontiers in Psychology, 2.

Gouzouasis, P., Guhn, M., & Kishor, N. (2007). The predictive relationship between achievement and participation in music and achievement in core grade 12 academic subjects. Music Education Research, 9(1), 81-92.

Gromko, J. E. (2005). The effect of music instruction on phonemic awareness in beginning readers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 53(3), 199-209.

Haas, R. (2009). Music that works, 1-10.

Handel, S. (1993). Listening: An introduction to the perception of auditory events. The MIT Press.

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Hetland, L. (2000). Learning to make music enhances spatial reasoning. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34(3/4), 179-238.

Ho, Y. C., Cheung, M. C., & Chan, A. S. (2003). Music training improves verbal but not visual memory: cross-sectional and longitudinal explorations in children. Neuropsychology, 17(3), 439.

Hodges, D. A. (1996). Handbook of music psychology. San Antonio, TX: IMR press.

Hoffer, C. R. (1976). The understanding of music. Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Hoffman, R., Pelto, W., & White, J. W. (1996). Takadimi: A beat-oriented system of rhythm pedagogy. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, 10, 7-30.


Janata, Petr; Tomic, Stefan; Haberman, Jason. Sensorimotor Coupling in Music and the Psychology of the Groove. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 141(1):54-75, February 2012.

Jaques-Dalcroze, E. (1921). Rhythm, music and education. GP Putnam’s sons.

Jones, M. R., Fay, R. R., & Popper, A. N. (Eds.). (2010). Music perception. Springer.

Kostka, S. M., Clendinning, J. P., Ottman, R., & Phillips, J. (1995). Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to Twentieth. McGraw-Hill.

Large, E. W., & Snyder, J. S. (2009). Pulse and meter as neural resonance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169(1), 46-57.

Lerdahl, F., & Jackendoff, R. (1983). An overview of hierarchical structure in music. Music Perception, 229-252.

Lerdahl, F., & Jackendoff, R. (1996). A generative theory of tonal music. MIT press.

London, J. (2012). Hearing in time. OUP USA.
Marques, C., Moreno, S., Luís Castro, S., & Besson, M. (2007). Musicians detect pitch violation in a foreign language better than nonmusicians: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(9), 1453-1463.

McAuley, J. D. (1995). Perception of time as phase: Toward an adaptive-oscillator model of rhythmic pattern processing. (1995)

McAuley, J. D., & Semple, P. (1999). The effect of tempo and musical experience on perceived beat. Australian Journal of Psychology, 51 (3), 176{187.

Ottman, R. W., & Mainous, F. D. (2004). Rudiments of music (p. xiv298). Prentice Hall.

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Pelletier, C. L. (2004). The effect of music on decreasing arousal due to stress: a meta-analysis. Journal of Music Therapy.
Phillips-Silver, J., Toiviainen, P., Gosselin, N., Piché, O., Nozaradan, S., Palmer, C., & Peretz, I. (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia. Neuropsychologia, 49(5), 961-969.

Rankin, S. K., Large, E. W., & Fink, P. W. (2009). Fractal tempo fluctuation and pulse prediction. Music Perception, 26(5), 401-413.

Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G., & Ky, K. (1993). Mozart and spatial reasoning. Nature, 365, 611.

Repp, B. H. (2005). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of the tapping literature. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12(6), 969-992.

Repp, B. H., & Su, Y. H. (2013). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of recent research (2006–2012). Psychonomic bulletin & review, 1-50.

Schaefer, R. S., Desain, P., & Farquhar, J. (2013). Shared processing of perception and imagery of music in decomposed EEG. NeuroImage, 70, 317-326.

Schellenberg, E. G. (2001). Music and nonmusical abilities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930(1), 355-371.

Schellenberg, E. G. (2005). Music and cognitive abilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(6), 317-320.

Schellenberg, E. G. (2006). Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(2), 457.

Schön, D., Magne, C., & Besson, M. (2004). The music of speech: Music training facilitates pitch processing in both music and language. Psychophysiology, 41(3), 341-349.


Schön, D., Boyer, M., Moreno, S., Besson, M., Peretz, I., & Kolinsky, R. (2008). Songs as an aid for language acquisition. Cognition, 106(2), 975-983.

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Snyder, J. S., & Large, E. W. (2005). Gamma-band activity reflects the metric structure of rhythmic tone sequences. Cognitive Brain Research 24(1), 117-126.

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