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Desain, P. (in preparation) Mental representations of musical meter, a response to Palmer and Krumhansl.

Abstract

Palmer and Krumhansl's (1990) findings about the statistical regularities that convey musical meter are criticized. Their frequency counts of occurrence of note onsets in the different positions within a bar are replicated and methodological and analytical errors in the study are identified. The profiles they found turn out to be not as robust as claimed, and many high correlations upon which their conclusions are based are shown to be artifacts. The theoretical implications of a meter perception model based on frequency profiles are elaborated, again showing the limitations of this approach. Higher order statistical regularities which improves upon their zero order characterization are given and their power is evaluated.