Comparison of sensory contributions to accurate keystroke position control across keyboard instruments

This presentation provides an overview of three experiments conducted by our research group, with contributions from individuals involved in earlier stages of the project. These experiments investigate how performers achieve appropriate keystroke position control on different keyboard instruments—a keytar, an 88-key electronic piano, and an electronic marimba, respectively—under restricted visual, haptic, and auditory information. These instruments vary in size, their position relative to the performer's body, and how the effector, hands or mallets are used. In the three experiments, music students and mallet players were asked to perform scale and arpeggio patterns under eight conditions: with/without visual information of the keyboard and hands, with/without auditory feedback, and with/without restricted tactile and somatosensory information. Results consistently showed that visual information was the most important and dominant across all three instruments for accurate keystroke position control. However, the other two types of information (haptic and auditory) varied in how they proved effective depending on the instrument. This study sheds light on the complex interaction between perception and action in keyboard instrument performance, highlighting how sensory reliance shifts based on the instrument's physical characteristics.