title: Active Drumming Experience Increases Infants' Sensitivity to Audiovisual Synchrony during Observed Drumming Actions.
abstract: In the current study, we examined the role of active experience on sensitivity to multisensory synchrony in six-month-old infants in a musical context. In the first of two experiments, we trained infants to produce a novel multimodal effect (i.e., a drum beat) and assessed the effects of this training, relative to no training, on their later perception of the synchrony between audio and visual presentation of the drumming action. In a second experiment, we then contrasted this active experience with the observation of drumming in order to test whether observation of the audiovisual effect was as effective for sensitivity to multimodal synchrony as active experience. Our results indicated that active experience provided a unique benefit above and beyond observational experience, providing insights on the embodied roots of (early) music perception and cognition.
authors.affiliation: University of St Andrews, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, St Andrews, United Kingdom; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Center for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sarah A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Gerson
authors.affiliation: Music Mind Machine in Sheffield, Department of Music, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schiavio
authors.affiliation: Music Mind Machine in Sheffield, Department of Music, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Renee
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Timmers
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Center for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hunnius
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*