Master’s Thesis, Research Porposal : Investigating the influence of attentional level during silent score reading on performance accuracy: A pupillometry study

Introduction

Notational audiation (NA), reading musical scores silently (Brodsky et al., 2003), is an integral part of musicians’ artistic process (Keller, 2012). Over half of professional musicians are reported to use NA as a practice routine (Fine et al., 2015), but only a third of highly-skilled music students are proficient in generating NA (Brodsky et al., 2008). Thus, it points to the importance of incorporating NA into musical education and practice routine since recent behavioural studies reported that NA improves memorisation in guitarists (Iorio et al., 2022) and the accuracy of rhythm and pitch in trumpet students (Steenstrup et al., 2021). Furthermore, NA has the potential to replace part of physical practice, reducing the injuries associated with the long hours of instrumental practice (Wu, 2007).

Unfortunately, empirical NA research has been neglected in the field (Keller, 2012). To date, no studies have examined the different levels of musical complexity or expertise, which prevents generalisability. Furthermore, many studies overlooked that NA quality depends on the intensity of attentional resource expenditure (Clark et al., 2012), and that attentional processes tap into the covert cognitive system, which does not always result in observable behaviour (Just & Carpenter, 1992).

This study will use pupillometry to objectively measure the internal attentional processes and their impact on NA quality. The choice of method is based on the extensive research suggesting that pupillometry – which measures task-evoked changes in pupil diameter as a function of cognitive processing (Winn et al., 2018) – traces attentional processes reliably and precisely, eliminating the need to rely on subjective reports or behavioural paradigms (Beatty & Lucero-Wagoner, 2000). However, to date, only one single-case study assessed attentional processes during NA using pupillometry (Endestad et al., 2020) despite its non-invasive nature and increasing popularity in music cognition studies (Jagiello et al., 2019). Therefore, filling this lack of objective knowledge with an appropriate sample size can serve as empirical evidence for instrumentalising NA as a healthy path to musical expertise.