Internal Motor Tempo Contributes to the Determination of Preferred Music Tempo Regardless of Music Familiarity.

Abstract Humans have long listened to music. However, it is still unclear why people prefer some types of music over others. To investigate how music preference is determined, previous studies have focused on preferred music tempo since tempo can essentially determine music preference. Such studies have reported that external music components as well as internal motor tempo determine tempo preference. Moreover, it has been suggested that familiarity with a piece of music affects the impact of external music components on tempo preference. However, the question of how the contributions of the internal motor tempo and external music components for tempo preference simultaneously change depending on familiarity has not been investigated. Moreover, the issue of which external music components contribute to tempo preference depending on familiarity has not been clarified. Here, we investigate how the preference for music tempo is determined by the internal motor tempo and external music components depending on familiarity with a piece of music. Twenty-three participants adjusted music tempos according to their preferences and rated their music familiarity. In addition, they engaged in finger tapping at their preferred tempo. Music components, such as typically performed tempo or the number of notes, were also analysed. Analysis of the collected data with multiple linear regressions showed that the preferred tapping tempo contributed to the preferred music tempo regardless of familiarity, whereas the contributions of some of the music components changed depending on familiarity. The typically performed tempo that might relate to the memory of a piece of music contributed to the estimation of the preferred music tempo for familiar music, and the number of notes or the pitch that might relate to perceived tempo contributed to the estimation of unfamiliar music. These results suggested that internal motor tempo is constantly involved in tempo preference regardless of music familiarity, whereas the contribution of external music components varies depending on whether a piece of music has been memorized.