| Summary: | Auditory perception of time is superior to visual perception, both for simple intervals and beat-based musical rhythms. To what extent does this auditory advantage characterize perception of different hierarchical levels of musical meter, and how is it related to lifelong experience with music? We paired musical excerpts with auditory and visual metronomes that matched or mismatched the musical meter at the beat level (faster) and measure level (slower) and obtained fit ratings from adults and children (5–10 years). Adults exhibited an auditory advantage in this task for the beat level, but not for the measure level. Children also displayed an auditory advantage that increased with age for the beat level. In both modalities, their overall sensitivity to beat increased with age, but they were not sensitive to measurelevel matching at any age. More musical training was related to enhanced sensitivity in both auditory and visual modalities for measure-level matching in adults and beat-level matching in children. These that beat and meter perception develop quite gradually and rely on lifelong acquisition of knowledge © 2021 American Psychological Association
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