Improving Emotional Communication in Music Performance through Cognitive Feedback

This study investigates whether cognitive feedback (CFB) can improve the expressive skills of music performers. CFB involves providing performers with information about how their use of cues in the performance compares to an optimal model for emotional communication based on listeners' judgments. Eight guitar players were asked to perform short pieces of music so as to communicate different emotions to listeners. Their performances were judged by fifty listeners. Multiple regression was used to model the cue utilization of both performers and listeners, and the two systems were related by means of the Lens Model Equation (Tucker, 1964). Then, the performers were given CFB and were asked to change their cue utilization on the basis of this feedback. The results indicated that (a) CFB yielded a fifty percent increase in communication accuracy after a single feedback session, (b) the performers reacted positively to the CFB, and (c) the performers showed limited insight with regard to their cue utilization prior to the CFB.