Hypothesis : Watching a musical performance triggers unconscious action simulation mechanisms whose amplitude could be linked to the level of understanding of the musical interaction. Former works show that the action simulation can be tracked through the grip force exerted by a participant holding a measure device in his dominant hand while watching or mentally visualising an action.
In this work, we propose to evaluate the efficiency of a gripforce setup in the context of the perception and the active simulation of musical interactions. We’ve designed stimuli than present short musical interactions whose transparency (i.e. “natural” feel of the interaction) has been manipulated. Furthermore, we assess the influence of visual augmentations of the interactions on the gripforce variations.
Preliminary results confirmed the relevancy of the grip force variation as a potential marker for the strength of the mental representation of a musical gesture. Further participants should be added to the protocol to refine the results especially in terms of the influence of music expertise.
