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

Diana Blom · Sieu K. Khuu

24 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Eye Movement Research

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Diverse Music Education Insights Reading and Literacy Development Neuroscience and Music Perception

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.

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References

1974Working Memory 2007Working Memory, Thought, and Action 1981Contextual effects on word perception and eye movements during reading 2001Psychophysics of reading 1985The interaction of contextual constraints and parafoveal visual information in reading 2006Eye Movements as Reflections of Comprehension Processes in Reading 2013Deliberate practice: Is that all it takes to become an expert?1998Unspaced text interferes with both word identification and eye movement control

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2020Determining what expert piano sight-readers have in common 2020Handling of incongruences in music notation during singing or playing 2020Visual processing abilities associated with piano music sight-reading expertise 2023The influence of executive functions on eye-hand span and piano performance during sight-reading 2021Gaze Analysis of Pianists’ Sight-reading: Comparison Between Expert Pianists and Students Training to Be Pianists

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