“MIND READING IN MUSIC ENSEMBLES; QUANTIFYING INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION”

Interpersonal communication and the coordination of actions are
fundamental human capacities and central to success on tasks such as
driving a car, playing sports, or playing music as part of an ensemble.
Music ensemble performance is a particularly interesting context for
studying communication and coordination, since the communication is
largely nonverbal and the coordination has to be so precise. We present
two studies aimed at investigating the nonverbal auditory and visual
signals that musicians exchange during ensemble performance to
communicate their intentions and coordinate their actions. In the first
study, pianists performed duets with either violinists or other
pianists as the presence and absence of incoming auditory and visual
signals were manipulated. Participant pianists were found to rely
primarily on the presence of incoming audio signals in order to
synchronize with their duet partners, but also made use of visual
signals – especially at entry and re-entry points in the music,
following long pauses.