The Contributions of Development versus Music Training to Simple Tempo Discrimination

Children ages 7 to 15 and adults were asked to detect changes in an unaccompanied drumbeat that either increased, decreased, or maintained the same tempo across measures. Marked differences in performance as a function of age were found for the change trials, older subjects being more accurate, while musical training was relatively unimportant. For trials in which the beat remained constant, however, subjects with musical training were more accurate, while age, by itself, had little effect upon performance. A multiprocess model for the perception of tempo is discussed.