Abstract
Recent work in interpersonal coordination has revealed that neural oscillations, occurring spontaneously in the human brain, are modulated during the sensory, motor, and cognitive processes involved in interpersonal interactions. In particular, alpha-band (8–12 Hz) activity, linked to attention in general, is related to coordination dynamics and empathy traits. Researchers have also identified an association between each individual’s attentiveness to their co-actor and the relative similarity in the co-actors’ roles, influencing their behavioral synchronization patterns. We employed music ensemble performance to evaluate patterns of behavioral and neural activity when roles between co-performers are systematically varied with complete counterbalancing. Specifically, we designed a piano duet task, with three types of co-actor dissimilarity, or asymmetry: (1) musical role (starting vs. joining), (2) musical task similarity (similar vs. dissimilar melodic parts), and (3) performer animacy (human-to-human vs. human-to-non-adaptive computer). We examined how the experience of these asymmetries in four initial musical phrases, alternatingly played by the co-performers, influenced the pianists’ performance of a subsequent unison phrase. Electroencephalography was recorded simultaneously from both performers while playing keyboards. We evaluated note-onset timing and alpha modulation around the unison phrase. We also investigated whether each individual’s self-reported empathy was related to behavioral and neural activity. Our findings revealed closer behavioral synchronization when pianists played with a human vs. computer partner, likely because the computer was non-adaptive. When performers played with a human partner, or a joining performer played with a computer partner, having a similar vs. dissimilar musical part did not have a significant effect on their alpha modulation immediately prior to unison. However, when starting performers played with a computer partner with a dissimilar vs. similar part there was significantly greater alpha synchronization. In other words, starting players attended less to the computer partner playing a similar accompaniment, operating in a solo-like mode. Moreover, this alpha difference based on melodic similarity was related to a difference in note-onset adaptivity, which was in turn correlated with performer trait empathy. Collectively our results extend previous findings by showing that musical ensemble performance gives rise to a socialized context whose lasting effects encompass attentiveness, perceptual-motor coordination, and empathy.
Highlights
As humans, we face situations every day that demand coordination of our actions with those of other individuals, often in order to achieve a shared goal
In the investigation presented here, we evaluated neural alpha and behavioral activity during the final unison measure of the duets to determine how the asymmetries in the preceding portion of the task served as a priming context and shaped the interaction of subsequent unison performance
To examine whether performer error rates were associated with increasing in fatigue as the study progressed, we compared the number of errors exhibited in the first vs. second half of each study block
Summary
We face situations every day that demand coordination of our actions with those of other individuals, often in order to achieve a shared goal. Research investigating the behavioral dynamics that occur between an individual’s actions and the environmental events they perceive has provided valuable insight into how behavioral coordination is achieved (Schmidt and O’Brien, 1997; Richardson et al, 2005; Schmidt et al, 2007). Research on perceptual-motor coordination has demonstrated that individuals often naturally synchronize and coordinate their limb and body movements with periodic environmental events via visual (e.g., Giese et al, 1996), haptic (e.g., Jeka et al, 1998), or auditory (e.g., Repp and Penel, 2004; Repp, 2006) information. The patterns of interaction exhibited during interpersonal perceptual-motor coordination are often dynamic
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