When eyes outvote ears: Revisiting Tsay's Sight-Over-Sound effect in music performance evaluation

This study replicates Tsay's Sight-Over-Sound (SOS) effect in music performance evaluation. The original study saw Tsay (2013) present participants with triads of performances originating from music competitions, including the eventual winner. In a three-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) task, participants had to identify the winning player. Participants performed better-to a level beyond that which chance (1/3) could explain-when the triads were presented as video-only, compared to audio-only or audiovisual presentations, suggesting a visual dominance or Sight-Over-Sound effect. The present study aimed to conceptually replicate this effect using excerpts from the semi-final rounds of four international violin competitions. The stimuli were controlled for musical content, camera perspective, and camera movement, and each set included the eventual winner. In an online experiment, 104 participants completed the 3-AFC task for two competitions in the audiovisual condition and for the remaining two competitions in both audio-only and video-only conditions, respectively. Responses were analyzed within a Signal Detection Theory framework. Participants performed above chance in the video-only condition (M = 50.5% correct, d' = 0.572), but did not exceed chance in the audio-only (M = 35.1% correct) or audiovisual (M = 38.0% correct) conditions, respectively. Perceptual abilities measured by the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, as well as violin or viola expertise, predicted performance in the audio-only but not in the video-based conditions. The latter is consistent with both Tsay's original study and previous replication attempts. Taken together, the present results further support the existence of a Sight-Over-Sound effect in music performance evaluation. The findings suggest that as well as a focus on preparing the auditory domain carefully, musicians should also take visual performance components into consideration.