ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8204-7915
Current Organisations
University of Jyväskylä
,
University of Oxford
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Publications
Turning Heads on the Dance Floor: Synchrony and Social Interaction Using a Silent Disco Paradigm
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1177/20592043231155416
Abstract: Music and dance appear to have a social bonding effect, which some have theorized is part of their ultimate evolutionary function. Prior research has also found a social bonding effect of synchronized movement, and it is possible that interpersonal synchrony could be considered the “active ingredient” in the social bonding consequences of music or dance activity. The present study aimed to separate the effects of synchrony from other factors associated with joint experience of dancing by using a “silent disco” manipulation, in which the timing of a musical stimulus was varied within a dyad in a freestyle dance setting. Three conditions were included: synchrony, tempo-shifted (in which the tempo was stretched by 5% for one participant), and phase-shifted (in which the beat was offset by 90 degrees for one participant). It was found that, when participants were listening to music in time with each other, they gave higher subjective ratings of their experience interacting with their partner. Participants also were observed looking towards each other more in the synchrony condition, compared with the non-synchrony conditions. From this, it appears that sharing time may contribute to the social effects of joint dancing, independent of any other effects associated with sharing space on the dancefloor. Avenues for further research, and possibilities using this “silent disco” paradigm, are discussed.
The Synchrony-Prosociality Link Cannot Be Explained Away as Expectancy Effect: Response to Atwood et al. ()
Publisher: MIT Press
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1162/OPMI_A_00103
The evolution of gender dimorphism in the human voice: The role of octave equivalence
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 10-07-2022
Abstract: Humans exhibit what appears to be a unique vocal property: octave equivalence whereby adult male voices are, on average, an octave lower in pitch than those of adult females and children. The evolutionary significance of this seems largely to have escaped notice. While sexual selection might explain why male voices are generally lower, it cannot explain why they should be so much lower than what would be expected for body size, nor why the average difference should be exactly one octave. Nor does a generalised dimorphism convey why precisely tuned octaves feature so commonly in human vocal interaction. The octave features strongly in the organisation of music. A consequence of this characteristic of human pitch perception and production is the capacity to share and respond to vocal pitches (and their instrumental equivalents) as if they are ‘the same’ irrespective of the difference in range, a phenomenon known as octave equivalence. We investigate the nature of octave equivalence from an adaptive perspective and propose a hypothesis for its evolution based on the importance of chorusing for social bonding and pitch-matching in inter-generational exchange.
A crowd-sourced database of coronamusic: documenting online making and sharing of music during the COVID-19 pandemic
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 22-03-2021
Abstract: When a sweeping COVID-19 pandemic forced cultural venues, schools, and social hangouts into hibernation in early 2020, music life relocated to the digital world. On social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, sofas and balconies took center stage for musical performances presented as live-streamed concerts and recorded videos. Amateurs and professional musicians alike embraced digital formats and innovated novel genres of corona-themed music. We will refer to the products of this musical phenomenon collectively as "coronamusic." Adapting a well-known term from cultural musicology (Small, 1999), the erse practices of listening, playing, dancing, composing, rehearsing, improvising, discussing, exploring, and innovating within this domain will be characterized as "corona-musicking." This study aims to establish the CORONAMUSIC DATABASE–a crowdsourced corpus of links to coronamusic videos and news media reports (osf.io/y7z28/). This constitutes the first readily accessible and searchable resource for researchers from all disciplines with an interest in documenting and investigating the musical dynamics underlying the pandemic.
Simulating musical rotation, contour and notes: perception of (e)motion in nonmusicians
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 28-06-2021
Abstract: The meaning of music may rely upon perceived motion (Zuckerkandl, 1971). Recently, the framework of embodied music cognition, which draws on the discovery of mirror neurons and the theory of embodied simulation (Gallese, 2007), makes the claim that our understanding of human-made sounds draws upon our experience of making the same or similar movements and sounds, which involves imitation of the source of visual and auditory information (Cox, 2011). This paper investigates perceived motion and embodied music experience in non-musicians across three musical dimensions: melodic contour (ascending, descending and flat), melodic complexity (low, medium, high) and, following from Hanson and Huron (2019), note pattern (binary, ternary, quaternary). As part of an initiative to adhere to a high aesthetic standard, 27 ten-second piano tracks were created in collaboration with a film composer. In the computer task, participants rated stimuli on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 100 for perceived Direction, Rotation, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. Results showed that: 1) Quaternary conditions were perceived as having significantly more Rotation, Movement and being more Physically Involving than Ternary and Binary, 2) High Complexity conditions were perceived as evoking significantly more Movement and being more Emotionally Involving than Low and Medium, and 3) Ascending conditions were perceived as having significantly more Movement, Rotation and being more Emotionally and Physically Involving than Descending and Flat. Results indicate that greater embodiment evoked by musical ascent may be modulated by greater perceived exertion or ‘effort’ to reach higher pitches, in line with the mimetic subvocalization hypothesis (Cox, 2017). Future studies are needed to investigate whether perceived rotation is driven by note pattern (i.e. metre) or note density and pitch., and how musical contour and rotation impact sensorimotor activation in the brain.
A Crowd-Sourced Database of Coronamusic: Documenting Online Making and Sharing of Music During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 18-06-2021
Trait Empathy associated with Agreeableness and rhythmic entrainment in a spontaneous movement to music task: Preliminary exploratory investigations
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 28-03-2017
Abstract: The simulation theory of empathy suggests that we use motor processing to empathise, through modelling the actions of others. Similarly, research into embodied music cognition posits that music, particularly musical rhythm, is perceived as a motor stimulus. In both cases, the human Mirror Neuron System (MNS) is put forward as a potential underlying mechanism. If this is the case, some overlap may exist between the ability to empathise with others, and the ability to perceive rhythm in music. The present study investigated this relationship indirectly, through the study of in idual differences in Trait Empathy and rhythmic entrainment. Undergraduate students ( N = 237) completed a questionnaire battery including the EQ-Short, BFAS and questions about musical and dance experience. A relationship was observed between Agreeableness on the BFAS and the EQ-Short ( r = .554). Tests on a controlled s le of these participants ( n = 11) found a relationship between Trait Empathy and performance on a rhythmic entrainment task, involving spontaneous movement to a musical stimulus ( r τ = -.686). A novel measure of rhythmic entrainment was used, assessing each participant on the time taken to re-establish entrainment following an abrupt change in tempo. The findings suggest that Empathy and rhythmic entrainment may utilise similar brain regions. These regions may also be associated with the MNS, although neuroimaging data would be required to confirm this. Qualitative observations of the participants’ responses to the various musical stimuli were also recorded, and may inform future study. Furthermore, the observed relationship between Agreeableness and Trait Empathy may have implications for how these personality constructs are treated in the literature.
Author Correction: Cochlear SGN neurons elevate pain thresholds in response to music
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-01-2022
Cochlear SGN neurons elevate pain thresholds in response to music
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-07-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-021-93969-0
Abstract: The C-tactile (CLTM) peripheral nervous system is involved in social bonding in primates and humans through its capacity to trigger the brain’s endorphin system. Since the mammalian cochlea has an unusually high density of similar neurons (type-II spiral ganglion neurons, SGNs), we hypothesise that their function may have been exploited for social bonding by co-opting head movements in response to music and other rhythmic movements of the head in social contexts. Music provides one of many cultural behavioural mechanisms for ‘virtual grooming’ in that it is used to trigger the endorphin system with many people simultaneously so as to bond both dyadic relationships and large groups. Changes in pain threshold across an activity are a convenient proxy assay for endorphin uptake in the brain, and we use this, in two experiments, to show that pain thresholds are higher when nodding the head than when sitting still.
International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus15).
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2016
DOI: 10.1037/PMU0000153
Processing fluency for visual synchrony perception
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 09-06-2023
Abstract: Prior research has found that interpersonal synchrony increases social closeness and cooperation: this is often referred to as the synchrony-bonding effect. Most explanations for this synchrony-bonding effect rely upon higher-order social cognition (e.g. shared goals or self-other merging). Relatively little attention has been given to the perceptual experience of synchrony, and the low-level perceptual mechanisms involved, such as processing fluency. In two pre-registered experiments, we tested the novel hypothesis that synchrony (congruent movement) is easier to process than non-synchrony. In Study 1, no effect of direction congruency on performance was detected. However, Study 2 found a significant effect of speed congruency. This indicates decreased processing load when stimuli are moving at the same speed. We then discuss how these reduced visual stimuli may relate to naturalistic periodic movement. Crucially, the effect observed here does not rely upon social stimuli and may operate at an early stage of perceptual processing. This is an initial step in establishing a novel theory of the synchrony-bonding effect, based upon the principles of processing fluency.
Related Organisations
University Of Oxford
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Related Funding Activities
No related grants have been discovered for Joshua Michael Silberstein Bamford.