Hand Shape Familiarity Affects Guitarists’ Perception of Sonic Congruence

ABSTRACT

Musical performance depends on the anticipation of the perceptual consequences of motor behavior. Altered auditory feedback (AAF) has previously been used to investigate auditory-motor coupling but studies to date have predominantly used MIDI piano in experimental tasks. In the present study, we extend the AAF paradigm to the guitar, which differs from the piano both motorically and in its pitch-to-place mapping, allowing further investigation into the nature of this coupling. Guitarists played chords on a MIDI guitar in response to tablature diagrams. In half of the trials, one of the notes in the heard chord was artificially altered. Participants judged whether the feedback was altered or not, responding as quickly and accurately as possible by pressing one of two buttons on a footswitch. Participants ranked the familiarity of the chord shapes and the hand shapes of the stimuli. Judgement of sonic congruence was faster when the chord and hand shape were familiar, and when feedback was congruent, though there was no interaction between these factors. Our findings suggest that guitarists’ auditory-motor coupling is heterogenous with respect to their technique, and that perception-action coupling operates at the abstract level of the gesture. We discuss implications of these findings with regard to forward models and embodiment.

KEYWORDS:

• Forward models
• altered auditory feedback
• auditory-motor coupling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

Data and analysis scripts for this project have been made available on the Open Science Framework and can be accessed here: https://osf.io/5d8ws/?view_only=e8dd37e1ee1e438fb87769dcd1419b26

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Keith Phillips was supported by the Royal Northern College of Music’s Special Projects Fund and a research grant from Manchester Metropolitan University. Andrew Goldman was supported by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience Program at Columbia University;Manchester Metropolitan University [none];Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience Program at Columbia University;Royal Northern College of Music.