Feeling the beat: Belgian researchers discover how we sense rhythm
Researchers from UCLouvain, a Belgian university, have discovered through what process people generate a sense of rhythm.
There’s a full-blown “Rhythm and Brains Lab” at UCLouvain’s Institute of Neurosciences for just these kinds of awesome research projects, and a team led by Cédric Lenoir has determined that the brain reacts to sound in a different way than it does to the feeling of vibrations. We should maybe clarify that: when you hear music, your brain “spontaneously produces rhythmic fluctuations” as the researchers say, and those fluctuations correspond to the beat of the song, whereas this is not the case with touch. When touch is involved, the brain reacts to each vibration individually without integrating it into the bigger picture.
What this entails is that when you’re showing off your dance moves in a night club, tapping to the beat of a Stromae or Angèle song in your car, or bopping your head to a savoury jazz record in the comfort of your home, you’ve literally got the music in you.
In the future, the UCLouvain researchers want to investigate whether touch can take over from audition if one loses the capacity to hear, and whether “a long-term musical practice” can strengthen one’s rhythm through other senses.
These UCLouvain research findings are, if you‘ll indulge us, music to our ears.