Despite the long history of music psychology, rhythm similarity perception remains largely unexplored. Several studies suggest that edit-distance—the minimum number of notational changes required to transform one rhythm into another—predicts similarity judgments. However, the ecological validity of edit-distance remains elusive. We investigated whether the edit-distance model can predict perceptual similarity between rhythms that also differed in a fundamental characteristic of music—tempo. Eighteen participants rated the similarity between a series of rhythms presented in a pairwise fashion. The edit-distance of these rhythms varied from 1 to 4, and tempo was set at either 90 or 150 beats per minute (BPM). A test of congruence among distance matrices (CADM) indicated significant inter-participant reliability of ratings, and non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) visualized that the ratings were clustered based upon both tempo and whether rhythms shared an identical onset pattern, a novel effect we termed rhythm primacy. Finally, Mantel tests revealed significant correlations of edit-distance with similarity ratings on both within- and between-tempo rhythms. Our findings corroborated that the edit-distance predicts rhythm similarity and demonstrated that the edit-distance accounts for similarity of rhythms that are markedly different in tempo. This suggests that rhythmic gestalt is invariant to differences in tempo.

尽管音乐心理学有着悠久的历史，但节奏相似性知觉仍未得到很好的探索。多项研究表明，编辑距离（将一种节奏转换为另一种节奏所需的最小符号更改次数）可预测相似性判断。但是，编辑距离的生态有效性仍然难以捉摸。我们研究了编辑距离模型是否可以预测节奏之间的知觉相似性，这些节奏在音乐的基本特征（速度）方面也有所不同。18名参与者对以成对方式呈现的一系列节奏之间的相似性进行了评估。这些节奏的编辑距离从1到4不等，速度设置为每分钟90拍或150拍（BPM）。距离矩阵（CADM）之间的一致性测试表明，参与者之间的评分具有显着的可靠性，非度量多维标度（nMDS）可以根据等级和节奏是否共享相同的发作模式来对评分进行聚类，这是一种新颖的效果，我们称之为节奏优先。最后，Mantel测试揭示了节奏内和节奏间编辑距离与相似性等级之间的显着相关性。我们的发现证实了编辑距离可以预测节奏相似度，并证明编辑距离可以说明节奏的相似度在节奏上明显不同。这表明有节奏的格式塔不变于节奏上的差异。壁炉架测试显示，在节奏内和节奏间，编辑距离与相似性等级之间存在显着相关性。我们的发现证实了编辑距离可以预测节奏相似度，并证明编辑距离可以说明节奏的相似度在节奏上明显不同。这表明有节奏的格式塔不变于节奏上的差异。壁炉架测试显示，在节奏内和节奏间，编辑距离与相似性等级之间存在显着相关性。我们的发现证实了编辑距离可以预测节奏相似度，并证明编辑距离可以说明节奏的相似度在节奏上明显不同。这表明有节奏的格式塔不变于节奏上的差异。