In Tuesday’s (8/20) WQXR blog, Brian Wise writes about a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which “Dr. Chia-Jung Tsay and her research team at University College London found that when it comes to judging a performance, people will focus more on an artist’s stage presence than their musical prowess. Tsay’s team gave 1,200 volunteers, including professional musicians and novices, recordings of three finalists from 10 international singing competitions, and asked them to guess the eventual winners. Some of the clips were only video, some were only audio and others contained both sound and images. With just sound, or sound and video, novices and experts both guessed right and picked out the winners at about the same frequency (roughly 33 percent of the time). But with silent video alone, the success rate for both was much higher: from 46 to 53 percent.” According to scientist Daniel Levitin, the results are not surprising. “ ‘In a sense, the visual channel is more primordial than the auditory,’ he said of the brain’s chemistry. But for pianists or violinists who toil for countless hours on competition repertoire, the study may be sending a message: go see a stylist or a wardrobe consultant.”
Posted August 22, 2013
