The Effect of Rhythmic Complexity on Groove

Music instantly captivates listeners' attention, provides pleasure, motivates movement, and promotes social interaction. Groove refers to the pleasurable urge to move to music, engaging both sensorimotor and reward domains. Listening to and moving to rhythm can elicit a variety of pleasurable emotions, with rhythmic complexity influencing these responses. Many studies show that rhythms of medium complexity, which balance predictability and uncertainty, enhance pleasure and motivation to move. The current study sought to assess the relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove using the stimuli taken from the Computerized Adapted Beat Alignment Test (CA-BAT), a comprehensive tool for testing musical beat-processing abilities. Specifically, we explored how varying levels of rhythmic complexity in the CA-BAT musical stimuli influenced Pleasure and Wanting to Move. In addition, we investigated whether individual differences in musical reward sensitivity and musical training affected this relationship. The study involved 120 participants who rated 25 musical excerpts from the CA-BAT on a five-point scale for pleasure and wanting to move. We also collected data on musical reward sensitivity using the extended version of the Barcelona Musical Reward Questionnaire (eBMRQ) and assessed musical training using subscales of the Gold-MSI to explore their potential influence on the observed effects. Using pulse entropy as a predictor for rhythmic complexity, we observed an inverted U-shaped relationship with both Pleasure and Wanting to move ratings. This pattern supports the idea that the CA-BAT stimuli follow an inverted U shape for groove, reinforcing that medium-complexity rhythms enhance pleasure and the motivation to move. When we included the eBMRQ score and its subscales to assess the impact of musical reward sensitivity, we found that the SensoryMotor and Social subscales significantly influenced groove ratings. However, musical training did not have a significant effect on either Pleasure or Wanting to move. These findings suggest that groove is closely tied to perceived rhythmic complexity and underscore the intricate ways in which individual differences in musical reward interact with rhythmic patterns to shape the sensation of groove. Keywords: Groove, Rhythmic Complexity, Musical Reward, CA-BAT