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When to Disturb? �On Syncopation and Perceived Rhythmic Complexity

CC Liang* and Dr. Leigh VanHandel†

UBC VanLab* †, Faculty of Science*, Faculty of Arts †

MURC 2025

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Table of Contents

I

IV

II

III

V

Strong beats + musical expectancy

Quantifying disruption

Weightings vs. perceived complexity

Experiment + data analysis

Implication + future directions

Syncopation

Knowledge Gap

Methodology

Results

Conclusion

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Syncopation

The disturbance in regular rhythmic flow in music
Stressing an off-beat

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Longuet-Higgins and Lee’s (LHL) Syncopation Model

Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007

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Longuet-Higgins and Lee’s (LHL) Syncopation Model

Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007

x

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Knowledge Gap

II

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Positively Correlates

with perceived rhythmic complexity

Povel, 1985; VanHandel 2022, 2023, 2024

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Longuet-Higgins and Lee’s (LHL) Syncopation model

Fitch & Rosenfeld, 2007

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Hypothesis:��Although the LHL model captures the overall syncopation effects, it overlooks the role of specific metrical locations.

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Methodology

III

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Experiment Preparation

260 x 6 = 1560 stimuli
Syncopation amount, type, and silence

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

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Tempo Conditions

333 ms

(180 bpm)

400 ms

(150 bpm)

533 ms

(113 bpm)

666 ms

(90 bpm)

800 ms

(75 bpm)

933 ms

(64 bpm)

Faster Slower

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Participants

Total n = 602

Usable n = 456, mean age = 20.29

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Participant Task

Listen and rate 150 stimuli on a 6-point Likert scale

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Data Analysis

Mutated 456 x 150 = 68400 rows of data
Analyzed in Jupyter Notebook using R
Relied mostly on Pearson correlation
Grouped by note density, tempo, tempo conditions, LHL syncopation, and stimuli

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Results

IV

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Echoing Previous Findings

The effect of syncopation on perceived complexity is stronger at lower densities and slower tempos
Stimuli with syncopations appearing on strong beats (i.e., beats 1 and 3) were rated as more complex

Brillon 2022; VanHandel 2022, 2023, 2024

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Cross between Beats 1 and 3

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Beats vs. Tempo

Now, looking at how the relative strength of silence on each beat in each tempo individually, we observe an overall increasing correlation coefficient for silence on different beats as the tempo becomes slower
This means that at slower tempos, the effect of syncopations on perceived complexity becomes stronger on all beats
Again, all are statistically significant.

However, what calls for special attention is that beat 3 always has a higher correlation than beat 1, as we see the green line above the purple one
Beat 3 plays a more significant role in perceived complexity than beat 1

Recall that the LHL model weights syncopations happening on beat 1 more than syncopations on beat 3
These results appear to indicate that while the effects are tempo dependent, syncopations on beat 3 are actually perceived as creating more rhythmic complexity
This means that the LHL model may not be accurately capture syncopation's effect on perceived complexity

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Conclusion

V

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Implication

Echo previous findings on the overall trends
Understanding interaction between syncopation and metrical context
The LHL model underestimates the strong effect of syncopation on beat 3

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Future Directions

Metrical Positions

Time Signatures

Study perceived rhythmic complexity in other time signatures

Examine the effect of silence and metrical position

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Thank you for listening!

Questions?

Credits: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, and includes icons by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik

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References

Brillon, C. & VanHandel, L. (2022, August 4-7). Perceived Complexity & Metrical Fit [Conference presentation]. Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Portland, Oregon, United States.

Fitch, W. T., & Rosenfeld, A. J. (2007). Perception and production of syncopated rhythms. Music Perception, 25(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2007.25.1.43.

Longuet-Higgins, H.C., Lee, C.S. (1984). The Rhythmic Interpretation of Monophonic Music. Music Perception, 424-441.

Povel D.J., Essens, P. (1985). Perception of Temporal Patterns. Music Perception, 411-440.

VanHandel, L. (2022, August 4-7). Factors contributing to rhythmic complexity [Conference presentation]. Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Portland, Oregon, United States.

VanHandel, L. (2023, August 24-28). Syncopation, Density, and Variability as Contributing Factors to Perceived Complexity [Conference presentation]. International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Tokyo, Japan.

VanHandel, L. (2024, November 7-10) Not just syncopation: rhythmic complexity is … complex [Conference presentation]. Society for Music Theory 2024, Jacksonville, FL, United States.