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This study explored the influence of several factors, physical and human, on anisochrony's thresholds measured with an adaptive two alternative forced choice paradigm. The effect of the number and duration of sounds on anisochrony discrimination was tested in the first experiment as well as potential interactions between each of these factors and tempo. In the second experiment, the tempo or the inter onset interval (IOI) was varied systematically between 80 and 1000 ms. The results showed that just noticeable differences increase linearly and proportionally with IOI in accordance with Weber's law except for quickest tempo (IOI of 80 ms). The third experiment investigated the role of musical training on anisochrony thresholds obtained for different IOI. It focused on differential effects of musical experiences by comparing non-musicians, instrumentalists, and percussionists thresholds. The results of the present study replicated the findings of previous experiments regarding the adequacy of Weber's law for slow rhythm and provided evidence for its departure for fast tempos. Moreover, thresholds from percussionists seem distinguishable from the ones of other listeners by their highest sensitivity to temporal shifts suggesting therefore the necessity to control the nature of musical experiences. The results are discussed according to current models of time perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose Patients with amygdala lesions were found to be impaired in recognizing the fear emotion both from face and from music. In patients with Parkinson's disease ( PD), impairment in recognition of emotions from facial expressions was reported for disgust, fear, sadness and anger, but no studies had yet investigated this population for the recognition of emotions from both face and music. Methods The ability to recognize basic universal emotions (fear, happiness and sadness) from both face and music was investigated in 24 medicated patients with PD and 24 healthy controls. The patient group was tested for language (verbal fluency tasks), memory (digit and spatial span), executive functions ( Similarities and Picture Completion subtests of the WAIS III, Brixton and Stroop tests), visual attention ( Bells test), and fulfilled self-assessment tests for anxiety and depression. Results Results showed that the PD group was significantly impaired for recognition of both fear and sadness emotions from facial expressions, whereas their performance in recognition of emotions from musical excerpts was not different from that of the control group. The scores of fear and sadness recognition from faces were neither correlated to scores in tests for executive and cognitive functions, nor to scores in self-assessment scales. Conclusion We attributed the observed dissociation to the modality (visual vs. auditory) of presentation and to the ecological value of the musical stimuli that we used. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the care of patients with PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]