Incremental comprehension of pitch relationships in written music: Evidence from eye movements

Abstract

To investigate how proficient pianists comprehend pitch relationships in written music when they first encounter it we conducted two experiments in which proficient pianists' eyes were tracked while they read and played single-line melodies. In Experiment 1, participants played at their own speed; in Experiment 2 they played with an external metronome. The melodies were either congruent or anomalous, with the anomaly involving one bar being shifted in pitch to alter the implied harmonic structure (e.g., non-resolution of a dominant). In both experiments, anomaly led to rapid disruption in participants' eye-movements in terms of regressions from the target bar, indicating that pianists process written pitch relationships online. This is particularly striking because in musical sight-reading eye movement behaviour is constrained by the concurrent performance. Both experiments also showed that anomaly induced pupil dilation. Together these results indicate that proficient pianists rapidly integrate the music that they read into the prior context, and that anomalies in terms of pitch relationships lead to processing difficulty. These findings parallel those of text reading, suggesting that structural processing involves similar constraints across domains.

Handling of incongruences in music notation during singing or playing

“…Scholars interested in how experienced participants read incongruent music scores have differed on whether they apply familiar or unfamiliar music pieces or probes, into which the incongruences were inserted. The first line of research investigated how musicians process incongruent changes in unfamiliar notation (Ahken et al, 2012; Hadley et al, 2018). Ahken et al (2012) explored how pianists sight-read musical phrases containing incongruences that violated the musical tonality.…”

“…The study (Ahken et al, 2012) provided evidence that these kind of incongruences might cause changes in eye-movement behavior, such as an increase in mean proportion and duration of fixations. Hadley et al (2018) studied how pianists sight-read unfamiliar melodies that contained an anomalous, or “not typical,” bar. In this study, the pupil size parameter associated with cognitive arousal and effort (Holmqvist et al, 2011) was apparently analyzed for the first time in music-reading studies.…”

“…In this study, the pupil size parameter associated with cognitive arousal and effort (Holmqvist et al, 2011) was apparently analyzed for the first time in music-reading studies. Although experienced pianists were able to integrate notes they read into the prior context, anomalous pitch relationships led to processing difficulties that were reflected in eye-movement parameters through an increase in total duration of fixations and a decrease of first-pass fixation duration in the bar after the incongruence (Hadley et al, 2018). The first-pass fixation duration might have reflected compensatory processes while dealing with incongruence, that is, decreased duration of first-pass fixations immediately after the incongruent bar (Hadley et al, 2018).…”

“…Although experienced pianists were able to integrate notes they read into the prior context, anomalous pitch relationships led to processing difficulties that were reflected in eye-movement parameters through an increase in total duration of fixations and a decrease of first-pass fixation duration in the bar after the incongruence (Hadley et al, 2018). The first-pass fixation duration might have reflected compensatory processes while dealing with incongruence, that is, decreased duration of first-pass fixations immediately after the incongruent bar (Hadley et al, 2018). In addition, Hadley et al (2018) also demonstrated that the mean pupil size could be a useful parameter for studying processing difficulties in music reading, as the mean pupil size might increase immediately after the incongruent section.…”

“…The first-pass fixation duration might have reflected compensatory processes while dealing with incongruence, that is, decreased duration of first-pass fixations immediately after the incongruent bar (Hadley et al, 2018). In addition, Hadley et al (2018) also demonstrated that the mean pupil size could be a useful parameter for studying processing difficulties in music reading, as the mean pupil size might increase immediately after the incongruent section.…”