Effects of altered auditory feedback on piano performance

Abstract

Some studies in the field of developmental psychology have suggested that a complex task executed by an expert includes the automated and sequential execution of some subordinate skills. In this study, we regard the development of musical performance as the length of motor control of a musical instrument carried out with a feedforward process. We then verify this assumption through a performance experiment using skilled and unskilled pianists. Both pianists play one musical figure repeatedly in the experiment. In the middle of the performance, a mapping function between the key velocity and its sound output is altered. It is expected that pianists would try to correct their performance when receiving this altered auditory feedback. By checking the point at which they start to correct, we can infer the length of the unit used with the feedforward process. It is expected that the correction would occur at a specific point in the musical figure if skilled pianists have a certain length unit of automated motor control. On the other hand, the point of correction would have less consistency in the case of unskilled pianists. [Work supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research A, No. 16200016, JSPS.]