Co-performer Communication and Audience Perception of Musical Performances

Abstract

A music performance is an exciting environment for studying joint action and nonverbal communication. This thesis utilized music ensemble performances to study nonverbal communication occurring from two different perspectives. We examined bi-directional communication between co-performers and uni-directional communication of the musicians to the participants. The first paper (Chapter 2) used statistical measures (i.e., Granger causality analysis) to quantify head movements as a measure of joint action during a musical performance. We observed a change in direction and magnitude of information flow between co-performers based on the availability of visual and auditory cues. We wanted to extend this line of research to see how audience perception of the performances may change due to the auditory and visual manipulations of the performers. The second paper (Chapter 3) examines participant ratings of expression, cohesion, and general liking of the performance when presented with audio-visual, audio-only, and visual-only stimuli. These ratings not only show which sensory modality allows for the highest sensitivity to performer manipulations, but also provide insight into how musicians change their performances to communicate to the audience. My aim was to create a cohesive examination of co-performer communication and observer perception of musical performances.