Polyrhythmic organization of coupled nonlinear oscillators

We study the rhythmic organization of coupled nonlinear oscillators. If oscillators with non-identical internal frequency are coupled, they generate a great variety of periodic and chaotic rhythmic patterns. Sonification of these patterns suggests their characterization in terms of polyrhythms: each oscillatory unit subdivides "measures" of equal or varying length differently. For the case of two coupled oscillators, the organization of these polyrhythms is exemplified as a function of the internal frequency ratio and the coupling strength. Some sonification strategies are presented which aid to detect complex rhythmic relationships between oscillators. The results may be of importance for the analysis of complex multivariate time series like human EEG.