Rhythm and Tempo in Mania

Abstract: The rhythmicity and subjective tempo of psychotic inmates diagnosed as manic were compared with that of other psychotic and nonpsychotic, adult, male inmates. Rhythmicity and tempo accuracy scores were obtained on tasks which required reproducing and maintaining pulses, reproducing rhythms, and creating rhythms. Separate oneway ANOVAs were used to compare the groups on rhythmicity and tempo accuracy demonstrated in each task. The results werre as follows. With regard to rhythmicity, manic inmates were found to be superior to nonmanic psychotic inmates and equal to normal inmates when maintaining pulsus and imitating and creating rhythms. With regard to tempo accuracy, manic inmates were found to be superior to nonmanic psychotic inmates and equal to normal inmates when reproducing pulses, however no such differences were found between the three groups in tempo accuracy when synchronizing to pulses or while creating rhythms but not when imitating rhythms. The nonmanic psychotic group had better rhythmicity scores than tempo scores only when maintaining pulses. Tempo errors did not vary according to the speed of the item on any of the tasks in either manic or normal groups. The same results were found in the nonmanic psychotic groups except when creating rhythms. The rhythmicity findings concur with previous research and support the use of rhythmic tasks in verifying diagnostic distinctions between manic and other psychotic patients. The tempo findings are inconsistent with previous research and suggest further inquiry into tempo as a multidemensional construct.

Keyword(s): rhythm, rhythm-patterns, rhythmic-stimuli, tempo, mania, psychotic, adult-patients, male, prisoners, normal, pulse, synchronization.

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