Perception of synchronization in singing ensembles.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Music Perception
• Auditory Neuroscience

Background:

• Synchronization precision in singing ensembles is influenced by visual contact and rehearsal duration.
• Previous research established objective measures of synchronization but lacked investigation into listener perception.
• The impact of varying visual cues and practice on perceived synchrony in singing groups remains unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how listeners perceive synchronization in singing performances with altered visual contact (duos) and rehearsal amounts (quintets).
• To determine if listener musical expertise influences the perception of these synchronization variations.
• To assess the perceptual salience of objective synchronization differences in vocal ensembles.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 58 singing recordings from previous interpersonal synchrony studies (duos and quintets).
• Presentation of recordings to 33 participants with varying musical expertise (non-experts, performers, musicians).
• Participants rated perceived 'togetherness' on a scale of 0-100.

Main Results:

• Listeners perceived synchronization differences in duos based on the presence or absence of visual contact.
• No significant perception of synchronization differences was found in quintet recordings across rehearsals.
• Perceptual differences were consistent across all levels of musical training and performance experience.

Conclusions:

• Listener perception of vocal ensemble synchronization is sensitive to visual cues in duos but not to subtle temporal changes across rehearsals in larger groups.
• Objective synchronization improvements with practice in quintets were not perceptually salient to listeners.
• This study highlights the importance of visual synchrony in dyadic musical performance perception, irrespective of listener expertise.