The more you move, the more action you construct : a motion capture study on head and upper-torso movements in constructed action in Finnish Sign Language narratives

Abstract This paper investigates, with the help of motion capture data processed on corpus principles, the characteristics of head and upper-torso movements in constructed action and regular narration (i.e., signing without constructed action) in FinSL. Specifically, the paper evaluates the validity of two arguments concerning constructed action: that constructed action forms a continuum with regular narration, and that constructed action divides into three subtypes (i.e., overt, reduced, and subtle). The results presented in the paper support the first argument but not directly the second one. Because of the ambiguous position of reduced constructed action in between subtle and overt const…

Embodiment in Electronic Dance Music: Effects of musical content and structure on body movement

Electronic dance music (EDM) is music produced with the foremost aim to make people move. While research has revealed relationships between movement features and, for example, musical, emotional, or personality characteristics, systematic investigations of genre differences and specifically of EDM are rather rare. This article aims at offering insights into the embodiment of EDM from three different angles: first from a genre-comparison perspective, then by comparing different EDM stimuli with each other, and finally by investigating embodiments in one specific EDM stimulus. Sixty participants moved freely to 16 stimuli of four different genres (EDM, Latin, Funk, Jazz – four stimuli/genre)…

Head movements in Finnish Sign Language on the basis of Motion Capture data

This paper reports a study of the forms and functions of head movements produced in the dimension of depth in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Specifically, the paper describes and analyzes the phonetic forms and prosodic, grammatical, communicative, and textual functions of nods, head thrusts, nodding, and head pulls occurring in FinSL data consisting of a continuous dialogue recorded with motion capture technology. The analysis yields a novel classification of the kinematic characteristics and functional properties of the four types of head movement. However, it also reveals that there is no perfect correspondence between form and function in the head movements investigated.

A Single-Case, Mixed Methods Study Exploring the Role of Music Listening in Vibroacoustic Treatment

Chronic pain is a widespread issue accompanied commonly by depression and anxiety. Chronic pain has been shown to alter brain processing within the emotional and reward circuits, pointing towards a possible link between pain and comorbid mood disorders. Pain relief may be achieved by alleviating depressive and anxious symptoms. Relaxation is important for pain relief and eliciting relaxation through music listening is shown to relieve pain, depression, anxiety, and discomfort among others. In addition to auditory stimuli, Vibroacoustic treatment – the tactile application of low frequency sinusoidal sound vibration, plus music listening and therapeutic interaction – has been shown to be bene…

Turning Heads on the Dance Floor: Synchrony and Social Interaction Using a Silent Disco Paradigm

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 …

Exploring relations between Big Five personality traits and musical emotions embodied in spontaneous dance

We explored the hypothesis that musical emotions are embodied differentially by people according to their personality. Nine hundred and fifty two individuals completed the Big Five personality inventory. A subset of 60 participants were asked to spontaneously move to 30 short musical stimuli while being recorded with a motion-capture system. The musical stimuli were separately rated for perceived emotions. Embodied musical emotions were evaluated as the correlation between features derived from the motion-capture data and the mean ratings of perceived emotions. Correlations between embodied musical emotions and personality traits provided tentative support for our hypothesis. A series of l…

Tapping Doesn't Help : Synchronized Self-Motion and Judgments of Musical Tempo

For both musicians and music psychologists, beat rate (BPM) has often been regarded as a transparent measure of musical speed or tempo, yet recent research has shown that tempo is more than just BPM. In a previous study, London, Burger, Thompson, and Toiviainen (Acta Psychologica, 164, 70–80, 2016) presented participants with original as well as “time-stretched” versions of classic R&B songs; time stretching slows down or speeds up a recording without changing its pitch or timbre. In that study we discovered a tempo anchoring effect (TAE): Although relative tempo judgments (original vs. time-stretched versions of the same song) were correct, they were at odds with BPM rates of each stimulus…

EDM and Ecstasy: the lived experiences of electronic dance music festival attendees

Attendance at large-scale music festivals has captivated a global interest in these spectacular experiences, yet little is known about the lasting benefits and personal changes individuals incur following this event. This study aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of the lived experiences of individuals who attended a multi-day electronic dance music festival. The present study was primarily interested in the perceived beneficial changes within the individual, following their festival experience. We investigated if first-time festival attendees perceived changes differed to those of returning individuals. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to collect data from 12 indivi…

Kinematics of perceived dyadic coordination in dance

We investigated the relationships between perceptions of similarity and interaction in spontaneously dancing dyads, and movement features extracted using novel computational methods. We hypothesized that dancers’ movements would be perceived as more similar when they exhibited spatially and temporally comparable movement patterns, and as more interactive when they spatially oriented more towards each other. Pairs of dancers were asked to move freely to two musical excerpts while their movements were recorded using optical motion capture. Subsequently, in two separate perceptual experiments we presented stick figure animations of the dyads to observers, who rated degree of interaction and si…

All Eyes on Me : Behaving as Soloist in Duo Performances Leads to Increased Body Movements and Attracts Observers’ Visual Attention

Duo musicians exhibit a broad variety of bodily gestures, but it is unclear how soloists’ and accompanists’ movements differ and to what extent they attract observers’ visual attention. In Experiment 1, seven musical duos’ body movements were tracked while they performed two pieces in two different conditions. In a congruent condition, soloist and accompanist behaved according to their expected musical roles; in an incongruent condition, the soloist behaved as accompanist and vice versa. Results revealed that behaving as soloist, regardless of the condition, led to more, smoother, and faster head and shoulder movements over a larger area than behaving as accompanist. Moreover, accompanists …

Motown, Disco, and Drumming

In a study of tempo perception, London, Burger, Thompson, and Toiviainen (2016) presented participants with digitally ‘‘tempo-shifted’’ R&B songs (i.e., sped up or slowed down without otherwise altering their pitch or timbre). They found that while participants’ relative tempo judgments of original versus altered versions were correct, they no longer corresponded to the beat rate of each stimulus. Here we report on three experiments that further probe the relation(s) between beat rate, tempo-shifting, beat salience, melodic structure, and perceived tempo. Experiment 1 is a replication of London et al. (2016) using the original stimuli. Experiment 2 replaces the Motown stimuli with disco…

Hunting for the beat in the body: on period and phase locking in music-induced movement.

Music has the capacity to induce movement in humans. Such responses during music listening are usually spontaneous and range from tapping to full-body dancing. However, it is still unclear how humans embody musical structures to facilitate entrainment. This paper describes two experiments, one dealing with period locking to different metrical levels in full-body movement and its relationships to beat- and rhythm-related musical characteristics, and the other dealing with phase locking in the more constrained condition of sideways swaying motions. Expected in Experiment 1 was that music with clear and strong beat structures would facilitate more period-locked movement. Experiment 2 was assum…

Synchronization to metrical levels in music depends on low-frequency spectral components and tempo

Previous studies have found relationships between music-induced movement and musical characteristics on more general levels, such as tempo or pulse clarity. This study focused on synchronization abilities to music of finely-varying tempi and varying degrees of low frequency spectral change/flux. Excerpts from six classic Motown/R&B songs at three different tempos (105, 115, and 130 BPM) were used as stimuli in this experiment. Each was then time-stretched by a factor of 5% with regards to the original tempo, yielding a total of 12 stimuli that were presented to 30 participants. Participants were asked to move along with the stimuli while being recorded with an optical motion capture system.…

Exploring the use of Vibroacoustic treatment for managing chronic pain and comorbid mood disorders : A mixed methods study

Introduction: Chronic pain is a worldwide issue with common comorbidities of depression and anxiety, altogether inhibiting one’s personal relationships and capability to work. Music has long been used as a means to improve pain and mood, and the tactile application of music has shown promising and beneficial results for the treatment of both psychological and physical symptoms. VA treatment uses low frequency sinusoidal sound vibration (20-120Hz) supported by client-preferred music listening and therapeutic interaction. Methods: Using mixed methods, this study addresses the addition of a self-care VA intervention to maintain the effects of practitioner-led VA treatments and to increase pati…

Emotion-driven encoding of music preference and personality in dance

Thirty rhythmic music excerpts were presented to 60 individuals. Dance movements to each excerpt were recorded using an optical motion-capture system, preference for each excerpt recorded on a 5-point Likert scale, and personality assessed using the 44-item version of the Big Five Inventory. From the movement data, a large number of postural, kinematic and kinetic features were extracted, a subset of which were chosen for further analysis using sequential backward elimination with variance inflation factor (VIF) selection. Multivariate analyses revealed significant effects on these 11 features of both preference and personality, as well as a number of interactions between the two. As regar…

Conscientiousness and Extraversion relate to responsiveness to tempo in dance

Previous research has shown broad relationships between personality and dance, but the relationship between personality and specific structural features of music has not been explored. The current study explores the influence of personality and trait empathy on dancers' responsiveness to small tempo differences between otherwise musically identical stimuli, measured by difference in the amount in acceleration of key joints. Thirty participants were recorded using motion capture while dancing to excerpts from six popular songs that were time-stretched to be slightly faster or slower than their original tempi. Analysis revealed that higher conscientiousness and lower extraversion both correla…

Postural and gestural synchronization, sequential imitation, and mirroring predict perceived coupling of dancing dyads

Body movement is a primary nonverbal communication channel in humans. Coordinated social behaviors, such as dancing together, encourage multifarious rhythmic and interpersonally coupled movements from which observers can extract socially and contextually relevant information. The investigation of relations between visual social perception and kinematic motor coupling is important for social cognition. Perceived coupling of dyads spontaneously dancing to pop music has been shown to be highly driven by the degree of frontal orientation between dancers. The perceptual salience of other aspects, including postural congruence, movement frequencies, time-delayed relations, and horizontal mirrorin…

Relationships between perceived emotions in music and music-induced movement

Listening to music makes us move in various ways. Several factors can affect the characteristics of these movements, including individual factors and musical features. Additionally, music-induced movement may also be shaped by the emotional content of the music, since emotions are an important element of musical expression. This study investigates possible relationships between emotional characteristics of music and music-induced, quasi-spontaneous movement. We recorded music-induced movement of 60 individuals, and computationally extracted features from the movement data. Additionally, the emotional content of the stimuli was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent correlational …

Effects of the Big Five and musical genre on music-induced movement

Nine-hundred-and-fifty-two individuals completed the Big Five Inventory, and 60 extreme scorers were presented with 30 music excerpts from six popular genres. Music-induced movement was recorded by an optical motion-capture system, the data from which 55 postural, kinematic, and kinetic movement features were computed. These features were subsequently reduced to five principal components of movement representing Local Movement, Global Movement, Hand Flux, Head Speed, and Hand Distance. Multivariate Analyses revealed significant effects on these components of both personality and genre, as well as several interactions between the two. Each personality dimension was associated with a differen…

Synchronizing eye tracking and optical motion capture : How to bring them together

Both eye tracking and motion capture technologies are nowadays frequently used in human sciences, although both technologies are usually used separately. However, measuring both eye and body movements simultaneously would offer great potential for investigating cross- modal interaction in human (e.g. music and language-related) behavior. Here we combined an Ergoneers Dikablis head mounted eye tracker with a Qualisys Oqus optical motion cap- ture system. In order to synchronize the recordings of both devices, we developed a gener- alizable solution that does not rely on any (cost-intensive) ready-made / company-provided synchronization solution. At the beginning of each recording, the partic…

Influences of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features on characteristics of music-induced movement

Music makes us move. Several factors can affect the characteristics of such movements, including individual factors or musical features. For this study, we investigated the effect of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features as well as tempo on movement characteristics. Sixty participants were presented with 30 musical stimuli representing different styles of popular music, and instructed to move along with the music. Optical motion capture was used to record participants’ movements. Subsequently, eight movement features and four rhythm- and timbre-related musical features were computationally extracted from the data, while the tempo was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent c…

Anxiety reduction with music and tempo synchronization on magnetic resonance imaging patients

Anxiety and claustrophobic reactions in MRI examinations cause unintentional movements, and such motion artifacts lead to interpretation problems. Furthermore, requested anesthesia makes the process costly. A total of 60 outpatients were examined in the Diagnostic Centre of Pécs, Hungary, to test whether synchronizing recorded music to the gradient pulsation of the MRI device can improve the sedative effect of the music. The patients were assigned to three groups: a nonmusic (control), an original tempo (random) and a synchronized music (synchronous) group. Results showed a significantly decreased state anxiety level after the MRI examination in the random and synchronous groups as compared…

All Eyes on Me

Duo musicians exhibit a broad variety of bodily gestures, but it is unclear how soloists’ and accompanists’ movements differ and to what extent they attract observers’ visual attention. In Experiment 1, seven musical duos’ body movements were tracked while they performed two pieces in two different conditions. In a congruent condition, soloist and accompanist behaved according to their expected musical roles; in an incongruent condition, the soloist behaved as accompanist and vice versa. Results revealed that behaving as soloist, regardless of the condition, led to more, smoother, and faster head and shoulder movements over a larger area than behaving as accompanist. Moreover, accompanists …

Dance Like Someone is Watching

Although dancing often takes place in social contexts such as a club or party, previous study of such music-induced movement has focused mainly on individuals. The current study explores music-induced movement in a naturalistic dyadic context, focusing on the influence of personality, using five-factor model (FFM) traits, and trait empathy on participants’ responses to their partners. Fifty-four participants were recorded using motion capture while dancing to music excerpts alone and in dyads with three different partners, using a round-robin approach. Analysis using the Social Relations Model (SRM) suggested that the unique combination of each pair caused more variation in participants’ a…

Speed on the dance floor : auditory and visual cues for musical tempo

Musical tempo is most strongly associated with the rate of the beat or “tactus,” which may be defined as the most prominent rhythmic periodicity present in the music, typically in a range of 1.67–2 Hz. However, other factors such as rhythmic density, mean rhythmic inter-onset interval, metrical (accentual) structure, and rhythmic complexity can affect perceived tempo (Drake et al., 1999 and London, 2011Drake, Gros, & Penel, 1999; London, 2011). Visual information can also give rise to a perceived beat/tempo (Iversen, et al., 2015), and auditory and visual temporal cues can interact and mutually influence each other (Soto-Faraco and Kingstone, 2004 and Spence, 2015). A five-part experiment w…

Personality and musical preference using social-tagging in excerpt-selection.

Music preference has been related to individual differences like social identity, cognitive style, and personality, but quantifying music preference can be a challenge. Self-report measures may be too presumptive of shared genre definitions between listeners, while listener ratings of expert-selected music may fail to reflect typical listeners’ genre boundaries. The current study aims to address this by using a social-tagging approach to select music for studying preference. In this study, 2,407 tracks were collected and subsampled from the Last.fm social-tagging service and the EchoNest platform based on attributes such as genre, tempo, and danceability. The set was further subsampled acco…

Dance moves reflect current affective state illustrative of approach–avoidance motivation.

Move the way you feel : effects of musical features, perceived emotions, and personality on music-induced movement

Dance to your own drum: Identification of musical genre and individual dancer from motion capture using machine learning

Machine learning has been used to accurately classify musical genre using features derived from audio signals. Musical genre, as well as lower-level audio features of music, have also been shown to...

Vibroacoustic treatment to improve functioning and ability to work: a multidisciplinary approach to chronic pain rehabilitation

Purpose: To study the use of Vibroacoustic treatment and an added self-care intervention for improving the functioning and ability to work of patients with chronic pain and potential comorbid depressive and anxious symptoms.Materials and methods: A mixed methods study with four single cases. Participants received bi-weekly Vibroacoustic practitioner-led treatment sessions for five weeks, followed by a one-month washout period without treatments. Then, participants conducted four self-care vibroacoustic sessions per week for five weeks, followed by another month-long washout period. Participants kept diaries of their experiences during this time. Quantitative scales included the World Health…

Tapping doesn't help: Synchronized self-motion and judgments of musical tempo.

For both musicians and music psychologists, beat rate (BPM) has often been regarded as a transparent measure of musical speed or tempo, yet recent research has shown that tempo is more than just BPM. In a previous study, London, Burger, Thompson, and Toiviainen (Acta Psychologica, 164, 70–80, 2016) presented participants with original as well as “time-stretched” versions of classic R&B songs; time stretching slows down or speeds up a recording without changing its pitch or timbre. In that study we discovered a tempo anchoring effect (TAE): Although relative tempo judgments (original vs. time-stretched versions of the same song) were correct, they were at odds with BPM rates of each stimulus…

Empathy, Entrainment, and Perceived Interaction in Complex Dyadic Dance Movement

The current study explores how individuals' tendency to empathize with others (trait empathy) modulates interaction and social entrainment in dyadic dance in a free movement context using perceptual and computationally derived measures. Stimuli consisting of 24 point-light animations were created using motion capture data selected from a sample of 99 dyads, based on self-reported trait empathy. Individuals whose Empathy Quotient (EQ) scores were in the top or bottom quartile of all scores were considered to have high or low empathy, respectively, and twelve dyads comprised of four high-high, four low-low, and four high-low empathy combinations were identified. Animations of these dyads were…

See how it feels to move: Relationships between movement characteristics and perception of emotions in dance

Music makes humans move in ways found to relate to, for instance, musical characteristics, personality, or emotional content of the music. In this study, we investigated associations between embodiments of musical emotions and the perception thereof. After collecting motion capture data of dancers moving to emotionally distinct musical stimuli, silent stick-figure animations were rated by a set of observers regarding perceived discrete emotions, while 10 movement features were computationally extracted from the motion capture data. Results indicate kinematic profiles—emotion-specific sets of movement characteristics—that furthermore conform with dimensional models of valence and arousal, su…

Considerations Concerning a Methodology for Musical Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction

Robot technology is increasingly employed in artistic (musical) applications and as modeling tool for the investigation of general cognitive abilities and music related behavior in particular. Apart from the specifications of required system behavior and technological aspects of system design/implementation, problems occur concerning the evaluation of the systems. In recent approaches, techniques such as collecting informal reports, perceptual tests, video-based observational studies, or rating scales have been employed. Questions arise, however, as to the reliability and validity of these measures, and the lack of standardization diminishes the comparability of different studies. To attack…

Hot or Not? Personality and attraction on the dance floor

Previous research has shown that personality plays a significant role in interpersonal attraction. We took this issue to the dance floor, and investigated how personality characteristics of both observers and dancers affect the former’s attractiveness ratings of the latter. Sixty-two heterosexual adult participants watched 48 short audio-visual point-light animations of eight male and eight female adults dancing to Techno, Pop, and Latin music. Participants rated perceived skill of each dancer, and the likelihood with which they would go on a date with them. Both dancers’ and observers’ personality characteristics were assessed using the Big Five Inventory. Multivariate analyses of variance…

On Happy Dance : Emotion Recognition in Dance Movements

Movements are capable of conveying emotions, as shown for instance in studies on both non-verbal gestures and music-specific movements performed by instrumentalists or professional dancers. Since dancing/moving to music is a common human activity, this study aims at investigating whether quasi-spontaneous music-induced movements of non-professional dancers can convey emotional qualities as well. From a movement data pool of 60 individuals dancing to 30 musical stimuli, the performances of four dancers that moved most notably, and four stimuli representing happiness, anger, sadness, and tenderness were chosen to create a set of stimuli containing the four audio excerpts, 16 video excerpts (w…