title: Syncopation affects free body-movement in musical groove.
abstract: One of the most immediate and overt ways in which people respond to music is by moving their bodies to the beat. However, the extent to which the rhythmic complexity of groove-specifically its syncopation-contributes to how people spontaneously move to music is largely unexplored. Here, we measured free movements in hand and torso while participants listened to drum-breaks with various degrees of syncopation. We found that drum-breaks with medium degrees of syncopation were associated with the same amount of acceleration and synchronisation as low degrees of syncopation. Participants who enjoyed dancing made more complex movements than those who did not enjoy dancing. While for all participants hand movements accelerated more and were more complex, torso movements were more synchronised to the beat. Overall, movements were mostly synchronised to the main beat and half-beat level, depending on the body-part. We demonstrate that while people do not move or synchronise much to rhythms with high syncopation when dancing spontaneously to music, the relationship between rhythmic complexity and synchronisation is less linear than in simple finger-tapping studies.
authors.affiliation: Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark. maria.witek@clin.au.dk.
authors.forename: Maria A G
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4369-4570
authors.initials: MAG
authors.lastname: Witek
authors.affiliation: Dresden Music Cognition Lab, Dresden University of Technology, August-Bebel Str 20, 01219, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Tudor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Popescu
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, St Aldate's, Oxford, OX1 1DB, UK.
authors.forename: Eric F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Bartholins Alle 9, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Mads
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.affiliation: Section for Cognitive Systems, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Richard Petersens Plads, 2800, Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Konvalinka
authors.affiliation: Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark.|Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford, Warneford Lane, Oxford, OX3 7JX, UK.
authors.forename: Morten L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Kringelbach
authors.affiliation: Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vuust
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D003615:Dancing; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009146:Music; D010507:Periodicity; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013575:Syncope / Q000503:physiopathology*; D060726:Torso / Q000294:innervation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Groove; Movement; Music; Rhythm; Synchronisation; Syncopation