The Effect of Rhythm Cycle Length, Cultural Familiarity, and Musicianship on Learning and Recall of North Indian Rhythmic Patterns

The study explores the effect of the length of rhythmic cycles, familiarity, musicianship, and rhythmic structure on the perception of long rhythmic cycles of North Indian Classical Music (NICM). While the impact of sequence length has been explored for musical tones and words, this study extends this approach to study the effect of length on the perception of long rhythmic cycles of NICM. Stimuli consisted of four NICM rhythmic cycles: two isochronous (8-beat Kehervatal and 16-beat Teental) and two non-isochronous (7-beat Rupaktal and 10-beat Jhaptal), with test stimuli including versions of each rhythmic cycle with an extra beat. Participants included 81 Culturally Familiar (Indian) Non-Musicians, 65 Culturally Unfamiliar (Western) musicians, and 61 Culturally Unfamiliar (Western) Non-Musicians. The study involved a three-part task: baseline rating of stimuli similarity, a training phase with instructional videos and practice, and post-training stimuli rating on a 7-point similarity scale. The results highlight that cultural exposure and musical training (not in the culture) affect one’s ability to learn and differentiate rhythmic patterns. Shorter rhythmic cycles (7-beat, 8-beat cycles) were learned and recalled by Culturally Familiar Non-Musicians and Culturally Unfamiliar Musicians, while longer ones (10-beat, 16-beat cycles) posed challenges, due to higher cognitive demands. Culturally Unfamiliar Non-Musician participants showed no learning or recall for the four rhythmic cycles. The effect of length was influenced by the structure of the rhythmic cycles, as Culturally Unfamiliar Musicians were able to differentiate the 10-beat non-isochronous cycle even before learning, likely because its structure allowed for cognitive strategies (such as chunking) to support memory and pattern recognition.