Music, movement and marimba: an investigation of the role of movement and gesture in communicating musical expression to an audience

The experiment reported in this article investigated the assumption that visual movement plays a role in musician-to-audience communication in marimba performance. Body movement is of particular relevance here as the expressive capabilities of the marimba are relatively restricted, and the movements required to play it are visible. Twenty-four musically trained and 24 musically untrained observers rated auditory-only and auditory-visual presentations of 20th-century solo marimba excerpts for perceived expressiveness and interest. Performances were given by a male and a female professional musician in projected (public performance expression) and deadpan (minimized expressive features) performance manners. As hypothesized, higher ratings were recorded in response to projected performances than to deadpan. The hypothesized interaction between modality and performance manner was observed. Musically trained participants recorded higher ratings than musically untrained observers, upholding the final hypothesis. Expressive body movement plays an important role in the communication between marimba performer and audience - a role relevant for both performers and educators. Copyrigh

Action and familiarity effects on self and other expert musicians’ Laban effort-shape analyses of expressive bodily behaviors in instrumental music performance: a case study approach

Self-reflective performance review and expert evaluation are features of Western music performance practice. While music is usually the focus, visual information provided by performing musicians’ expressive bodily behaviors communicates expressiveness to musically trained and untrained observers. Yet, within a seemingly homogenous group, such as one of musically trained individuals, diversity of experience exists. Individual differences potentially affect perception of the subtleties of expressive performance, and performers’ effective communication of their expressive intentions. This study aimed to compare self- and other expert musicians’ perception of expressive bodily behaviors observed in marimba performance. We hypothesized that analyses of expressive bodily behaviors differ between expert musicians according to their specialist motor expertise and familiarity with the music. Two professional percussionists and experienced marimba players, and one professional classical singer took part in the study. Participants independently conducted Laban effort-shape analysis – proposing that intentions manifest in bodily activity are understood through shared embodied processes – of a marimbists’ expressive bodily behaviors in an audio-visual performance recording. For one percussionist, this was a self-reflective analysis. The work was unfamiliar to the other percussionist and singer. Perception of the performer’s expressive bodily behaviors appeared to differ according to participants’ individual instrumental or vocal motor expertise, and familiarity with the music. Furthermore, individual type of motor experience appeared to direct participants’ attention in approaching the analyses. Findings support forward and inverse perception–action models, and embodied cognitive theory. Implications offer scientific rigor and artistic interest for how performance practitioners can reflectively analyze performance to improve expressive communication

An exploration of the person-related markers in finite synthetic verbs in C16 Basque

From an examination of the emergence of Batua, dialect classification, the relationship of sixteenth century Basque to Batua, two sets of sixteenth century sources, the thesis contends that, over the last half-millennium, Basque has changed to a greater extent than generally acknowledged. Semantic, aspectual, syntactic, phonological and morphological change is illustrated, showing how different sources reflect different stages of key transitions. Investigation of the morphosyntax of sixteenth century person-related markers contrasts patterns of distribution, positioning, pleonasm and omission with those of the modern language. Indexing between pre- and post-root features suggests a history of serial verbs, or possibly root suppletion; in particular the shift from sixteenth century predominantly pre-root (where they exist) to the modern overwhelmingly post-root positioning of dative flags lends weight to the contention that Basque might have transitioned from a language with previously greater pre-inflective typology than the overwhelmingly post-inflective language of today. Sixteenth century intermediate forms permit insights into an earlier history of reanalysis and repurposing and suggest foci for future research

The Impact of Routines on Resource Management: Challenges Facing Nonprofit Organisations

This paper explores the role of routines in the management of resources. Routines are considered a source of change or stability depending on certain factors, including how resources may be transformed by changes in routines. Charities face significant additional challenges in resource management which provide a particularly interesting environment for study. This paper examines the routines and resources of a strongly hierarchical nonprofit organisation currently undergoing significant change. The findings challenge understanding of the embeddedness factor by looking at how hierarchies can create pockets of conflicting change and consider how the relationships between the ostensive and performative aspects of routines are mediated by their implicit or explicitness in creating or restricting change

Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect

Holistic coding for faces is shown in several illusions that demonstrate integration of the percept across the entire face. The illusions occur upright but, crucially, not inverted. Converting the illusions into experimental tasks that measure their strength - and thus index degree of holistic coding - is often considered straightforward yet in fact relies on a hidden assumption, namely that there is no contribution to the experimental measure from secondary cognitive factors. For the composite effect, a relevant secondary factor is size of the "spotlight" of visuospatial attention. The composite task assumes this spotlight can be easily restricted to the target half (e.g., top-half) of the compound face stimulus. Yet, if this assumption were not true then a large spotlight, in the absence of holistic perception, could produce a false composite effect, present even for inverted faces and contributing partially to the score for upright faces. We review evidence that various factors can influence spotlight size: race/culture (Asians often prefer a more global distribution of attention than Caucasians); sex (females can be more global); appearance of the join or gap between face halves; and location of the eyes, which typically attract attention. Results from five experiments then show inverted faces can sometimes produce large false composite effects, and imply that whether this happens or not depends on complex interactions between causal factors. We also report, for both identity and expression, that only top-half face targets (containing eyes) produce valid composite measures. A sixth experiment demonstrates an example of a false inverted part-whole effect, where encoding-specificity is the secondary cognitive factor. We conclude the inverted face control should be tested in all composite and part-whole studies, and an effect for upright faces should be interpreted as a pure measure of holistic processing only when the experimental design produces no effect inverted.Australian Research Council DP0984558 to Elinor McKone; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (project number CE110001021); Kate Crookes salary supported by Hong Kong Research Grants Council grant (HKU744911) to William Hayward

Analyzing expressive qualities in movement and stillness: Effort-shape analyses of solo marimbists' bodily expression

laban movement analysis, specifically effort-shape analysis, is offered as a system to study musicians' bodily expression. It proposes others' intentions are manifest in expressive bodily activity and understood through shared embodied processes. The present investigation evaluates whether the basic components of Laban analysis are reflected in perceptual judgments of recorded performances and, specifically, evaluates interjudge reliability for effort-shape analysis. Sixteen audio-visual excerpts of marimba pieces performed by two professional solo marimbists' (female and male) served as stimuli. Effort-shape analyses and interjudge reliability thereof were assessed through three different tasks: 1) verification task, 2) independent analysis task, 3) signal detection yes/no task. Professional musicians - two percussionists, a violinist, and a French hornist - acted as participants. High interjudge reliability was observed for transformation drive and shape components, but less so for basic effort action components. Mixed interjudge reliability results for basic effort actions, and differences between frequency observations, point to differences in participant's embodied expertise, task implementation, and training issues. Effort-shape analysis has potential to drive comparative and predictive research into musicians' bodily expression. Effort-shape provides a fine-grain temporal analysis of ecologically valid performance sequences

It's not just about sound: investigating marimba performance as an auditory and visual experience

This paper is concerned with investigating expressive bodily movement in music performance, focussing on the keyboard percussion instrument, the marimba. A theoretical basis for developing a qualitative analysis of expressive bodily movement in music performance is presented. Research in experimental psychology and music performance has demonstrated that bodily movement creates visual information that can influence judgements of auditory information. The concert setting provides an excellent opportunity for performers to use both the aural and visual modes to their advantage in engaging audience attention and guiding awareness to musical content and artistic interpretation. It is suggested that the notated score provides sufficient information for the creation of an embodied musical interpretation resulting in an expressive audio-visual performance. It is proposed that ‘Laban Movement Analysis’ can be implemented as a qualitative method and meta-language for analysing expressive bodily movement in music performance. Two worked examples illustrate analysis of a performer’s expressive bodily movements. ‘Effort-Shape Notation’ is employed as a tool that links observed movement with the musical score. A theory based on embodied cognition of a musical score is proposed that explains the performer’s role in effectively communicating their artistic image and musical interpretation with an audience through auditory and visual means

A robust method of measuring other-race and other-ethnicity effects: the Cambridge Face Memory Test format

Other-race and other-ethnicity effects on face memory have remained a topic of consistent research interest over several decades, across fields including face perception, social psychology, and forensic psychology (eyewitness testimony). Here we demonstrate that the Cambridge Face Memory Test format provides a robust method for measuring these effects. Testing the Cambridge Face Memory Test original version (CFMT-original; European-ancestry faces from Boston USA) and a new Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese (CFMT-Chinese), with European and Asian observers, we report a race-of-face by race-of-observer interaction that was highly significant despite modest sample size and despite observers who had quite high exposure to the other race. We attribute this to high statistical power arising from the very high internal reliability of the tasks. This power also allows us to demonstrate a much smaller within-race other ethnicity effect, based on differences in European physiognomy between Boston faces/observers and Australian faces/observers (using the CFMT-Australian)