Music sight-reading expertise, visually disrupted score and eye movements

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that performance at a defined level of music sight reading for pianists (6th Grade) is predictive of eye movement patterns (Waters, 1998) and that such patterns resemble those of text reading experts (Furneaux & Land, 1999; Sloboda, 1974; Truitt, 1997; Wolf, 1976). However, little is known about how expertise might affect eye movement patterns when the score has been visually disrupted using notational features that are unexpected or outside conventional presentation.The current project examined the effect of altering features of the music score on eye movement patterns of expert and non-expert music sight readers. Participants sight read specifically composed musical excerpts, which were then re-presented with the bar-lines removed, altered inter-note spacing and unpredictable beaming directions. Fixation and saccade characteristics were measured and compared between the two performances. It was expected that expert music sight readers would be most affected when the score was disrupted as they would be less capable of grouping notes into familiar, single units for efficient visual processing. Expert sight readers performed significantly faster than non-experts in both conditions: p<0.0001. Saccadic latency increased significantly for experts in the disrupted condition: p=0.0259, while non-experts increased slightly, not reaching significance. This suggests that the disruption of visual expectation was sufficient to cause a lengthening of saccade programming in the experts - an indication of interference with the chunking process. The resultant EM patterns for the non-experts demonstrated heightened non-expert behaviours: increased fixations of shorter duration.

Eye on Music Reading: A Methodological Review of Studies from 1994 to 2017

“…This approach is very fitting for descriptive purposes-that is, when pointing out general pattern-like differences between reading by experts and novices, or when piloting and experimenting for future studies. In the Experimental Approach (Table 2b), focus has been on the eye-movement effects of violating melodic and harmonic expectations (Ahken et al, 2012;Penttinen et al, 2015;Hadley et al, 2018), unusual visual layout (Arthur et al, 2016; see also Ahken et al, 2012), or on the very basic reading mechanisms explored with extremely simple musical tasks (Kinsler & Carpenter, 1995;Truitt et al, 1997;Penttinen & Huovinen, 2011;Huovinen et al, 2018). With simple tasks, the leading idea has been to keep some factors of the stimuli constant and only vary one: for instance, Kinsler and Carpenter (1995) only asked their performers to tap rhythms, whereas Penttinen and Huovinen (2011) and Huovinen et al (2018) created melodies where all notes were of the same duration (see also Truitt et al, 1997).…”

“…Thus, research of cognitive factors involved in visual tasks often studies the duration, location, order, and timing of fixations. In their review in 2008, Madell and Hébert set the average fixation duration during music reading at 200-400 ms. More recently, however, Penttinen, Huovinen and Ylitalo (2015) and Arthur, Khuu and Blom (2016) reported slightly higher average durations (500-700 ms), and, overall, it seems likely that fixation durations are greatly affected by task-and performer-related factors. There is also large variability in the case of a single performer and a performance: Goolsby (1994b), for instance, noted that the fixation durations of one singer varied from 99 to 1640 milliseconds during one single performance.…”

“…To roughly summarize recent published work on music reading, eye movements are affected both by 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' factors (e.g. Wurtz, Mueri, & Wiesendanger, 2009;Ahken, Comeau, Hébert, & Balasubramaniam, 2012;Drai-Zerbib, Baccino, & Bigand, 2012;Arthur, et al, 2016;Rosenmann, Altenmüller, & Fahle, 2016;Huovinen, Ylitalo, & Puurtinen, 2018). Not surprisingly, then, reading depends in practice both on 'who is reading' and 'what is being read'.…”

Eye tracking in Educational Science: Theoretical frameworks and research agendas

“…Similar findings occur also in other domains of expertise, such as playing music (Lehmann & Gruber, 2006). In most cases, reading from notes is an important part of playing music and thus, it is one aspect of musical expertise that is investigated with eye tracking (Arthur, Blom, & Khuu, 2016;Penttinen & Huovinen, 2011;Penttinen, Huovinen, & Ylitalo, 2013. Reingold and Sheridan (2011) provide a comprehensive overview of eye tracking research on visual expertise.…”

Cross-modal music integration in expert memory: Evidence from eye movements

“…Waters et al, 1997). However, this chunking process may be disrupted in the case of an unexpected or unconventional visual pattern in the notation, resulting in longer saccadic latency (Arthur, Blom, & Khuu, 2016). Moreover, music reading is not only a matter of pattern recognition (low-level processing), but also a matter of interpretation, which requires inferences from long-term memory ([LTM], i.e.…”