Waddell George, Williamon Aaron
Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of MusicLondon, UK.
Front Psychol. 2017 Apr 25;8:513. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00513. eCollection 2017.
Judgments of music performance quality are commonly employed in music practice, education, and research. However, previous studies have demonstrated the limited reliability of such judgments, and there is now evidence that extraneous visual, social, and other "non-musical" features can unduly influence them. The present study employed continuous measurement techniques to examine how the process of forming a music quality judgment is affected by the manipulation of temporally specific visual cues. Video footage comprising an appropriate stage entrance and error-free performance served as the standard condition (Video 1). This footage was manipulated to provide four additional conditions, each identical save for a single variation: an inappropriate stage entrance (Video 2); the presence of an aural performance error midway through the piece (Video 3); the same error accompanied by a negative facial reaction by the performer (Video 4); the facial reaction with no corresponding aural error (Video 5). The participants were 53 musicians and 52 non-musicians ( = 105) who individually assessed the performance quality of one of the five randomly assigned videos via a digital continuous measurement interface and headphones. The results showed that participants viewing the "inappropriate" stage entrance made judgments significantly more quickly than those viewing the "appropriate" entrance, and while the poor entrance caused significantly lower initial scores among those with musical training, the effect did not persist long into the performance. The aural error caused an immediate drop in quality judgments that persisted to a lower final score only when accompanied by the frustrated facial expression from the pianist; the performance error alone caused a temporary drop only in the musicians' ratings, and the negative facial reaction alone caused no reaction regardless of participants' musical experience. These findings demonstrate the importance of visual information in forming evaluative and aesthetic judgments in musical contexts and highlight how visual cues dynamically influence those judgments over time.
音乐表演质量的评判在音乐实践、教育和研究中普遍使用。然而，先前的研究表明这种评判的可靠性有限，现在有证据表明无关的视觉、社会和其他“非音乐”特征会对其产生过度影响。本研究采用连续测量技术来检验在特定时间的视觉线索操控下，音乐质量判断的形成过程是如何受到影响的。包含合适的舞台入场和无错误表演的视频片段作为标准条件（视频1）。对该片段进行处理以提供另外四个条件，每个条件除了一个单一变量外都相同：一个不合适的舞台入场（视频2）；乐曲进行到一半时出现听觉表演错误（视频3）；相同的错误并伴有表演者负面的面部反应（视频4）；面部反应但没有相应的听觉错误（视频5）。参与者为53名音乐家和52名非音乐家（共105人），他们通过数字连续测量界面和耳机分别评估五个随机分配视频之一的表演质量。结果表明，观看“不合适”舞台入场的参与者做出判断的速度明显快于观看“合适”入场的参与者，虽然入场不佳导致受过音乐训练的人初始得分显著较低，但这种影响在表演过程中持续时间不长。听觉错误导致质量判断立即下降，只有当伴有钢琴家沮丧的面部表情时，才会持续到较低的最终得分；仅表演错误仅导致音乐家评分暂时下降，而仅负面面部反应无论参与者的音乐经验如何都没有引起反应。这些发现证明了视觉信息在音乐情境中形成评价性和审美性判断的重要性，并突出了视觉线索如何随着时间动态地影响这些判断。
