Coordination of perception and action in music performance

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONWhen performing musical sequences, people plan actions to produce acoustic events that communicate thoughts and emotions (for reviews see Gabrielsson, 1999;Jones & Holleran, 1992;Juslin & Sloboda, 2001;Palmer, 1997;Sloboda, 1982;1985;.Sequence production in contexts such as music and speech involves communicating a message through sound, a process that is probably guided by monitoring the perceived consequences of one's actions (Levelt, 1989;MacKay, 1987;Palmer & Drake, 1997). However, little research has addressed the role of self-perception in music performance. My research has explored this issue by examining the ways in which the maintenance of fluency during music performance depends on matches between actions and auditory feedback (the sounds one creates). Results suggest that higher-order representations of musical structure guide both the planning of actions and the perception of auditory feedback (cf. Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001;MacKay, 1987;Müsseler, 1999;Prinz, 1997).The lack of research on the role of auditory feedback may result from its apparently obvious importance to music performance. How else could music be learned or communicated but through close monitoring of sound? Nevertheless, some evidence indicates that the importance of auditory feedback may be circumscribed.On the one hand, the presence of sound during learning facilitates recall during performance, even for skilled pianists (Finney & Palmer, 2003). On the other hand, learning to produce a sequence of key presses on a piano does not depend on the presence of sound, even for people without any musical training (Pfordresher, 2005, Experiment 3). Furthermore, the absence of sound during keyboard performance of a learned melody has negligible effects on trained performers (Finney, 1997;Finney & Palmer, 2003;Pfordresher, 2005;Repp, 1999;Repp & Knoblich, 2004) or untrained performers (Pfordresher, 2005). actions when auditory feedback is present, though they may not rely on the presence of feedback. Disruption from altered feedback therefore may result from miscoordination between perception and action. The present article reviews research on the disruptive effects of altered auditory feedback to music performance, focusing in particular on the effects by the author (for more extensive reviews on the role of auditory feedback see Finney, 1999;Smith, 1962;Yates, 1963; for reviews focused on speech with applications for stuttering see Howell, 2004aHowell, , 2004b. The focus of the research summarized here is on keyboard performance, which is the only domain of music performance that has been studied extensively with respect to altered auditory feedback. This review is organized into two main sections, the first summarizes recent results of different kinds of feedback alterations, and the second reflects on the theoretical implications of these results. EFFECTS OF ALTERED AUDITORY FEEDBACK (AAF)Research on the interplay between perception and action in music performance has relied mainly on the altered auditory f...

Activation of learned action sequences by auditory feedback

“…Thus, alternate feedback was not "disruptive" of performance, as other alterations of feedback pitch are (cf. Pfordresher, 2006). Further analysis suggested that the error rates shown in Fig.…”

“…We here focus on the production of musical sequences on a piano keyboard and the associated role of auditory feedback. Many studies have shown that alterations of auditory feedback (AAF), such as delaying feedback onsets or altering feedback contents (pitch in music production), can disrupt sequence production (for reviews, see Pfordresher, 2006;Yates, 1963). One interpretation of such results is that AAF interferes with action planning, because perception and action may share an underlying cognitive representation for sequence structure (Pfordresher, 2006;cf.…”

Auditory and motor contributions to the timing of melodies under cognitive load.

“…Finally, we refer to a review of studies demonstrating the role of auditory feedback in music performance by Pfordresher (2006). This study is of particular interest because it discussed the underlying principles of how auditory feedback influences many characteristics of a music performance.…”

Multilevel coordination stability: Integrated goal representations in simultaneous intra-personal and inter-agent coordination

“…One possibility is that the anchoring process mentioned earlier is most effective at promoting global stability when structural congruence is high. More generally, perception and action may be more tightly coupled-allowing more stable global coordination-when movement patterns and the 'melodic' contours of auditory goals are represented by a common set of transitional relations than when representations of two distinctive sets of transitional relations are simultaneously active (for related discussions, see Hoffmann, Stöcker, & Kunde, 2004;Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001;Klapp, Porter-Graham, & Hoifjeld, 1991;Koch, Keller, & Prinz, 2004;Pfordresher, 2006). It may be the case that the concurrent simulation of movements and auditory goals by internal models (see Wolpert & Ghahramani, 2000) runs more smoothly when they have a common transitional structure.…”