Michael Wagner gave a (virtual) talk on Nov 19 on “The Roles of Pitch and Pause on Rhythm Perception” at Psychonomics in Boston. Slides are here.
Intensity and duration are well known to affect the perception of rhythm in sound sequences: alternating loud and soft sounds tend to be perceived as trochees, and alternating long and short sounds as iambs (Bolton 1894, Hay & Diehl 2007). Similar effects have been reported for pitch, often also based on tasks that ask about perceived foot type. But pitch effects are much more variable. This paper reports experiments exploring the roles pitch an pause play in perceiving grouping and prominence in sound sequences.