A music reader has to “look ahead” from the notes currently being played—this has usually been called the Eye-Hand Span. Given the restrictions on processing time due to tempo and meter, the Early Attraction Hypothesis suggests that sight readers are likely to locally increase the span of looking ahead in the face of complex upcoming symbols (or symbol relationships). We argue that such stimulus-driven effects on looking ahead are best studied using a measure of Eye-Time Span (ETS) which redefines looking ahead as the metrical distance between the position of a fixation in the score and another position that corresponds to the point of metrical time at fixation onset. In two experiments of temporally controlled sight reading, musicians read simple stepwise melodies that were interspersed with larger intervallic skips, supposed to create points of higher melodic complexity (and visual salience) at the notes following the skips. The results support both Early Attraction (lengthening of looking ahead) and Distant Attraction (lengthening of incoming saccades) in the face of relative melodic complexity. Notably, such effects also occurred on the notes preceding the nominally complex ones. The results suggest that saccadic control in music reading depends on temporal restrictions as well as on local variations in stimulus complexity.

In this review, we focus on the methodological aspects of eye-tracking research in the domain of music, published and/or available between 1994 and 2017, and we identify potentially fruitful next steps to increase coherence and systematicity within this emerging field. We review and discuss choices of musical stimuli, the conditions under which these were performed (i.e. control of performance tempo and music-reading protocols), performer’s level of musical expertise, and handling of performance errors and eye-movement data. We propose that despite a lack of methodological coherence in research to date, careful reflection on earlier methodological choices can help in formulating future research questions and in positioning new work. These steps would represent progress towards a cumulative research tradition, where joint understanding is built by systematic and consistent use of stimuli, research settings and methods of analysis.

During music reading, performers create expectations of the upcoming music. When these expectations are violated due to changes in the notation, performers have to adjust their reading and adapt their motor responses to match this new information. In this study, we examine how selected background, outcome, and process measures reflect the successful handling of incongruences during music reading. Twenty-four performers were tasked with singing or playing versions of “Mary had a little lamb” in two different tonalities. Some versions contained a surprising element: a bar shifted down a tone. Selected outcome and process measures, such as performance accuracy and eye-movements during music reading (eye-time span, duration of first-pass fixations and pupil dilation), were analyzed. In sum, incongruence in music notation not only increased the number of performance mistakes, but incongruent melodies also led to micro-level changes in the reading processes. We propose that understanding the cognitive strategies for successful music reading requires going beyond the more traditional outcome measures and focus on the detailed analyses of the reading process itself.

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The food experience is multisensory and multisensory external stimuli may affect food choice and emotions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multisensory eating environment on food choice, intake and the emotional states of the subjects in a salad lunch buffet setting. A total of 30 female subjects consumed a salad lunch twice in the multisensory laboratory. The two test conditions (control and multisensory condition with environmental stimuli) were randomized and the visits were scheduled one week apart. Subjects selected and ate a meal from a salad buffet including 14 food items and the intake of each item was weighed. They answered an online questionnaire about the meal and their emotional states (20 different emotion terms) after the lunch. There was no significant difference in the food consumption between the control and multisensory conditions. The subjects were very satisfied with their lunch for both study visits but the pleasantness of the eating environment was rated higher under the multisensory condition. In emotional terms, the subjects selected the term “happy” significantly more frequently under the multisensory condition compared with the control. In conclusion, the multisensory eating environment in this study was not related to food intake but may be associated with positive emotions. The effect of the eating environment on food choice and experience deserves further study with a larger study population in a real lunch restaurant setting.