Name:Tienchee, Liu

School/Affiliation:McMaster University

Co-Authors:Kyle Albuquerque-Boutilier, Emily A. Wood, Daniel J. Cameron, Laurel J. Trainor

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Short Bio:

Tienchee Liu is in her third year at McMaster University, studying Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour with a specialization in music cognition. Kyle Albuquerque-Boutilier is a recent graduate from Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour at McMaster University. They both have a strong interest in understanding how music drives movement and have been working together to investigate the role of music structure in affecting movement.

Abstract:

How does music make us move? Do the musical motivators of dance affect us when we are sitting still? This study investigates how musical structure, specifically break routines in electronic dance music (EDM), affects the urge to move and actual movement. Break routines are sequences consisting of a breakdown, buildup, and beat drop, and are common in EDM. Prior work found that break routines in two EDM clips drove groups to dance more, but that work has not been generalized to other music or with independent sampling (individual participants). Other work measures urge-to-move ratings (while participants do not move), but whether subjective ratings and actual movement reflect the same sensitivity to music structure is unknown. Participants (n=32) completed two tasks: 1) a dance task in which they moved freely to EDM clips with or without break routines, while their movement was tracked using motion capture, and 2) a ratings task in which they continuously rated their urge to move while sitting and listening to the same clips. Preliminary results suggest that both movement speed and urge-to-move ratings increased more over time when a break routine was present. Within break routines, movement and ratings both increased gradually through the three sections. These preliminary results suggest that both movement and subjective urge to move (while not moving) are dynamically affected by musical structure. Analyses comparing the dynamics of movement and urge-to-move ratings directly are ongoing and will reflect extent to which moving our bodies alters our sensitivity to musical motivators of movement.