Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail Drive, Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, USA.
Psychol Res. 2020 Oct;84(7):1920-1945. doi: 10.1007/s00426-019-01187-1. Epub 2019 May 9.
Two experiments investigated the impact of two structural factors-musical tonality and musical texture-on pianists' ability to play by sight without prior preparation, known as musical sight-reading. Tonality refers to the cognitive organization of tones around a central reference pitch, whereas texture refers to the organization of music in terms of the simultaneous versus successive onsets of tones as well as the number of hands (unimanual versus bimanual) involved in performance. Both experiments demonstrated that tonality and texture influenced sight-reading. For tonality, both studies found that errors in performance increased for passages with lesser perceived psychological stability (i.e., minor and atonal passages) relative to greater perceived stability (i.e., major passages). For texture, both studies found that errors in performance increased for passages that were more texturally complex, requiring two-handed versus one-handed performance, with some additional evidence that the relative simultaneity of note onsets (primarily simultaneous versus primarily successive) also influenced errors. These experiments are interpreted within a perception-action framework of music performance, highlighting influences of both top-down cognitive factors and bottom-up motoric processes on sight-reading behavior.
两项实验研究了两个结构因素——音乐调性和音乐织体——对钢琴家无需事先准备即可视奏的能力的影响，这种能力被称为音乐视奏。调性是指围绕中央参考音高对音的认知组织，而织体是指根据音的同时或相继出现以及演奏中涉及的手的数量（单手与双手）来组织音乐。这两项实验都表明，调性和织体影响视奏。就调性而言，两项研究都发现，与感知到更大稳定性（即大调段落）相比，表现中的错误对于感知到较小稳定性（即小调段落和无调性段落）的段落增加。就织体而言，两项研究都发现，对于需要双手演奏而不是单手演奏、更具织体复杂性的段落，表现中的错误增加，并且有一些额外的证据表明音符起始的相对同时性（主要是同时还是主要是相继）也会影响错误。这些实验是在音乐表演的感知-动作框架内进行解释的，突出了自上而下的认知因素和自下而上的运动过程对视奏行为的影响。
