Motor Variability in Complex Gesture Learning: Effects of Movement Sonification and Musical Background

With the increasing interest in movement sonification and expressive gesture-based interaction, it is important to understand which factors contribute to movement learning and how. We explore the effects of movement sonification and users’ musical background on motor variability in complex gesture learning. We contribute an empirical study in which musicians and non-musicians learn two gesture sequences over three days, with and without movement sonification. Results show the interlaced interaction effects of these factors and how they unfold in the three-day learning process. For gesture 1, which is fast and dynamic with a direct “action-sound” sonification, movement sonification induces higher variability for both musicians and non-musicians on day 1. While musicians reduce this variability to a similar level as no auditory feedback condition on day 2 and day 3, non-musicians remain to have significantly higher variability. Across three days, musicians also have significantly lower variability than non-musicians. For gesture 2, which is slow and smooth with an “action-music” metaphor, there are virtually no effects. Based on these findings, we recommend future studies to take into account participants’ musical background, consider longitudinal study to examine these effects on complex gestures, and use awareness when interpreting the results given a specific design of gesture and sound.

Dance Is More Than Meets the Eye—How Can Dance Performance Be Made Accessible for a Non-sighted Audience?

Dance is regarded as visual art form by common arts and science perspectives. Definitions of dance as means of communication agree that its message is conveyed by the dancer/choreographer via the human body for the observer, leaving no doubt that dance is performed to be watched. Brain activation elicited by the visual perception of dance has also become a topic of interest in cognitive neuroscience, with regards to action observation in the context of learning, expertise and aesthetics. The view that the aesthetic experience of dance is primarily a visual one is still shared by many artists and cultural institutions, yet there is growing interest in making dance performances accessible for individuals with visual impairment / blindness. Means of supporting the non-visual experience of dance include verbal (audio description), auditive (choreographed body sounds, movement sonification), and haptic (touch tour) techniques, applied for different purposes by artists and researchers, with three main objectives: to strengthen the cultural participation of a non-sighted audience in the cultural and aesthetic experience of dance; to expand the scope of dance as an artistic research laboratory toward novel ways of perceiving what dance can convey; and to inspire new lines of (neuro-cognitive) research beyond watching dance. Reviewing literature from different disciplines and drawing on the personal experience of an inclusive performance of Simon Mayer's “Sons of Sissy,” we argue that a non-exclusively visual approach can be enriching and promising for all three perspectives and conclude by proposing hypotheses for multidisciplinary lines of research.

The impact of movement sonification on haptic perception changes with aging

Combining multisensory sources is crucial to interact with our environment, especially for older people who are facing sensory declines. Here, we examined the influence of textured sounds on haptic exploration of artificial textures in healthy younger and older adults by combining a tactile device (ultrasonic display) with synthetized textured sounds. Participants had to discriminate simulated textures with their right index while they were distracted by three disturbing, more or less textured sounds. These sounds were presented as a real-time auditory feedback based on finger movement sonification and thus gave the sensation that the sounds were produced by the haptic exploration. Finger movement velocity increased across both groups in presence of textured sounds (Rubbing or Squeaking) compared to a non-textured (Neutral) sound. While young adults had the same discrimination threshold, regardless of the sound added, the older adults were more disturbed by the presence of the textured sounds with respect to the Neutral sound. Overall, these findings suggest that irrelevant auditory information was taken into account by all participants, but was appropriately segregated from tactile information by young adults. Older adults failed to segregate auditory information, supporting the hypothesis of general facilitation of multisensory integration with aging.