A functional magnetic resonance imaging examination of audiovisual observation of a point-light string quartet using intersubject correlation and physical feature analysis.

We use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to explore synchronized neural responses between observers of audiovisual presentation of a string quartet performance during free viewing. Audio presentation was accompanied by visual presentation of the string quartet as stick figures observed from a static viewpoint. Brain data from 18 musical novices were obtained during audiovisual presentation of a 116 s performance of the allegro of String Quartet, No.

[Interprofessional simulation in emergency medicine].

Teamwork is essential in emergency medicine, but in practice it can be polluted by communication difficulties, a lack of understanding of everyone's roles and responsibilities, and a discordant definition of operating methods and objectives. Today, there is a strong awareness of the need to train medical and healthcare teams in interprofessional collaborative practice to learn how to work as a team, reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. Simulation is a recognized and effective pedagogical modality for achieving these objectives.

Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music.

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants.

Simulation as a Training Method for Electricity Workers' Safety.

Background: Simulation is a useful method to improve learning and increase the safety of work operations, both for technical and non-technical skills. However, the observation, assessment, and feedback about these skills is particularly complex, because the process needs expert observers, and the feedback could be judgmental and ineffective. Therefore, a structured process to develop effective simulation scenarios and tools for the observation and feedback about performance is crucial.

Language is the missing link in action-perception coupling: an EEG study.

The paper reports an electrophysiological (EEG) study investigating how language is involved in perception-action relations in musically trained and untrained participants. Using an original backward priming paradigm, participants were exposed to muted point-light videos of violinists performing piano or forte nuances followed by a congruent vs. incongruent word.

Music Ensemble as a Resilient System. Managing the Unexpected through Group Interaction.

The present contribution provides readers from diverse fields of psychology with a new and comprehensive model for the understanding of the characteristics of music ensembles. The model is based on a novel heuristic approach whose key construct is resilience, intended here as the ability of a system to adapt to external perturbations and anticipate future events. The paper clarifies the specificity of music ensemble as an original social and creative activity, and how some mechanisms, at an individual (cognitive) and group (coordination) level, are enacted in a particular way that endows these groups with exceptional capacity for resilience.

Is he playing solo or within an ensemble? How the context, visual information, and expertise may impact upon the perception of musical expressivity.

Visual information is imperative when developing a concrete and context-sensitive understanding of how music performance is perceived. Recent studies highlight natural, automatic, and nonconscious dependence on visual cues that ultimately refer to body expressions observed in the musician. The current study investigated how the social context of a performing musician (eg playing alone or within an ensemble) and the musical expertise of the perceivers influence the strategies used to understand and decode the visual features of music performance.

Sensorimotor communication in professional quartets.

Non-verbal group dynamics are often opaque to a formal quantitative analysis of communication flow. In this context, ensemble musicians can be a reliable model of expert group coordination. In fact, bodily motion is a critical component of inter-musician coordination and thus could be used as a valuable index of sensorimotor communication.

The movements made by performers in a skilled quartet: a distinctive pattern, and the function that it serves.

When people perform a task as part of a joint action, their behavior is not the same as it would be if they were performing the same task alone, since it has to be adapted to facilitate shared understanding (or sometimes to prevent it). Joint performance of music offers a test bed for ecologically valid investigations of the way non-verbal behavior facilitates joint action. Here we compare the expressive movement of violinists when playing in solo and ensemble conditions.