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SIRI HUSTVEDT, Pace, Space and the Other in the Making of Fiction

Everything depends on successful systemic organic connectivity. The
fetus doesn’t only develop an increasing ability to move and touch, it
is moved by the body of its mother, and subject to the rhythmic realities
of her heartbeat, her breathing, her voice, her touching of her belly
and her various movements, especially her walk. Late in my own preg-
nancy, it became clear to me that when I walked, I rocked the nearly
born person inside me to sleep and when I lay down, she woke up
and became active.
A paper by Joëlle Provasi, David Anderson, and Marianne
Barbu-Roth, “Rhythm Perception, Production, and Synchronization
During the Perinatal Period,” provides an overview of the research.
The authors explain that “sensori-motor synchronization (SMS), the
capacity to synchronize a rhythmic motor pa ern with an externally
perceived rhythm, is unique to species capable of vocal learning.” 60
Actually, this is an extremely interesting hypothesis made by
Anirhuddh Patel, not a fact. The species seem to include human be-
ings, songbirds, parrots, cetaceans [whales, dolphins, and porpoises]
and pinnipeds, the only extant example of which, I discovered, is the
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walrus. To make SMS simple: when I tap my foot to the song you are
singing, I am demonstrating SMS. The consensus is that human chil-
dren get considerably be er at this as they age.
There has been research on fetal response to rhythmic stimuli,
however, and apparently my intuition about my own pregnancy has
been born out by research. “Near term fetuses display different HR
[heart rate] pa erns when the mother is walking (rhythmic pa erns)
versus resting while si ing or resting in a reclining position.” 62
Provasi, Anderson, and Barbu-Roth further note that premature in-
fants who are rocked gain more weight, suffer fewer respiratory prob-

60 Joëlle Provasi, David L. Anderson, and Marianne Barbu-Roth, “Rhythm
Perception, Production, and Synchronization During the Perinatal Period,”
Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014): 1-16.
61 Anirhuddh Patel, “Musical Rhythm, Linguistic Rhythm, and Human Evo-
lution,” Music Perception: An interdisciplinary Journal 24, no. 1 (2006): 101.
62 Provasi, Anderson, Barbu-Roth, “Rhythm Perception, Production, and Syn-
chronization During the Perinatal Period,” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014), 10.

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