Perception of rhythmic grouping depends on auditory experience

Many aspects of perception are known to be shaped by experience, but others are thought to be innate universal properties of the brain. A specific example comes from rhythm perception, where one of the fundamental perceptual operations is the grouping of successive events into higher-level patterns, an operation critical to the perception of language and music. Grouping has long been thought to be governed by innate perceptual principles established a century ago. The current work demonstrates instead that grouping can be strongly dependent on culture. Native English and Japanese speakers were tested for their perception of grouping of simple rhythmic sequences of tones. Members of the two cultures showed different patterns of perceptual grouping, demonstrating that these basic auditory processes are not universal but are shaped by experience. It is suggested that the observed perceptual differences reflect the rhythms of the two languages, and that native language can exert an influence on general auditory perception at a basic level.