- Title
- Gaze patterns of expert and amateur sight-readers with particular focus on the cognitive underpinnings of reading key and time signatures
- Creator
- Viljoen, Jacobus Frederick
- ThesisAdvisor
- Foxcroft, Catherine
- Subject
- Sight-reading (Music)
- Subject
- Eye tracking
- Subject
- Cognition
- Subject
- Musical notation
- Subject
- Tonality
- Subject
- Musical meter and rhythm
- Date
- 2021-10-29
- Type
- Doctoral theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/190908
- Identifier
- vital:45040
- Identifier
- 10.21504/10962/190908
- Description
- Over the last decade, eye-tracking technology has provided researchers with specific tools to study the process of reading (language and music) empirically. Most of these studies have focused on the “Eye-Hand Span” phenomenon (the ability to read ahead of the point of playing). However, little research investigates the cognitive implications of specific aspects of musical notation when performed in real time. This research aimed to observe the fixations patterns of sight-readers in order to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of key and time signatures in music scores. This research project is a quantitative study using a quasi-experimental research design. Tobii eye-tracking equipment and software were used to record the eye movements of 11 expert and 7 amateur keyboard sight-readers. Two key aspects of music notation, key and time signatures, were selected as the main focus of the study. To investigate these aspects, eighteen research participants were provided with seventeen sight-reading examples for one hand (low complexity) and two hands (high complexity) composed specifically by the researcher. Several examples contained one or more unexpected aspects (accidentals or changes of time signature) to test their effect on fixation count and duration. Two variables (fixation count and fixation duration) were utilised to analyze fixation patterns on the selected aspects of the scores. Three main results emerged from the data analysis: 1) Expert sight-readers performed with much greater accuracy than experts in both tests; 2) Expert sight-readers exhibited a higher fixation count on entire scores in complex examples; 3) Both expert and amateur sight-readers fixate more and for longer on certain notational aspects such as key and time signatures than other notational aspects such as deviations or individual notes. This selection of focused attention suggests that both expert and amateur sight-readers cognitively process music scores in a hierarchical order. In conclusion, key and time signatures appear to require more and longer fixations by both groups of readers than other aspects of the score. This supports previous research which suggests that sound musical knowledge may play a positive role in performers’ sight-reading skills, thereby contributing to more successful sight-reading performances.
- Description
- Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Music and Musicology, 2021
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (143 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Music and Musicology
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Viljoen, Jacobus Frederick
- Rights
- Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- Rights
- Open Access
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RU Department of Music & Musicology
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | VILJOEN-PHD-TR21-212.pdf | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |