De Tommaso Matteo, Prpic Valter
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Corso Bettini, 31, 38068, Rovereto, Trento, Italy.
Institute for Psychological Science, De Montfort University, LE1 9BH, The Gateway, Leicester, UK.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Jul;82(5):2765-2773. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01945-8.
The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) suggests the existence of an association between number magnitude and response position, with faster left-hand responses to small numbers and faster right-hand responses to large numbers. Recent studies have revealed similar spatial association effects for non-numerical magnitudes, such as temporal durations and musical stimuli. In the present study we investigated whether a spatial association effect exists between music tempo, expressed in beats per minutes (bpm), and response position. In particular, we were interested in whether this effect is consistent through different bpm ranges. We asked participants to judge whether a target beat sequence was faster or slower than a reference sequence. Three groups of participants judged beat sequences from three different bpm ranges, a wide range (40, 80, 160, 200 bpm) and two narrow ranges ("slow" tempo, 40, 56, 88, 104 bpm; "fast" tempo 133, 150, 184, 201 bpm). Results showed a clear SNARC-like effect for music tempo only in the narrow "fast" tempo range, with faster left-hand responses to 133 and 150 bpm and faster right-hand responses to 184 and 201 bpm. Conversely, a similar association did not emerge in the wide nor in the narrow "slow" tempo ranges. This evidence suggests that music tempo is spatially represented as other continuous quantities, but its representation might be narrowed to a particular range of tempos. Moreover, music tempo and temporal duration might be represented across space with an opposite direction.
反应编码的空间-数字关联（SNARC）效应表明，数字大小与反应位置之间存在关联，即对小数用左手反应更快，对大数用右手反应更快。最近的研究表明，对于非数字大小，如时间持续时间和音乐刺激，也存在类似的空间关联效应。在本研究中，我们调查了以每分钟节拍数（bpm）表示的音乐节奏与反应位置之间是否存在空间关联效应。特别是，我们感兴趣的是这种效应在不同的bpm范围内是否一致。我们要求参与者判断目标节拍序列比参考序列快还是慢。三组参与者分别判断来自三个不同bpm范围的节拍序列，一个宽范围（40、80、160、200 bpm）和两个窄范围（“慢”节奏，40、56、88、104 bpm；“快”节奏，133、150、184、201 bpm）。结果显示，仅在窄的“快”节奏范围内，音乐节奏存在明显的类似SNARC的效应，对133和150 bpm用左手反应更快，对184和201 bpm用右手反应更快。相反，在宽范围和窄的“慢”节奏范围内均未出现类似的关联。这一证据表明，音乐节奏在空间上的表征与其他连续量类似，但其表征可能局限于特定的节奏范围。此外，音乐节奏和时间持续时间在空间上的表征方向可能相反。
