Beyond synchronization: Body gestures and gaze direction in duo performance
This work addresses the problem of understanding non-verbal communication in musical duos for researchers in psychology and performance studies, but it appears incremental as it builds on prior studies without introducing new methods or results.
The paper examines body gestures and gaze direction as visual interaction categories in duo performances, motivated by research showing gesture predictability changes during joint action and coordination emerges in body sway, and that gaze serves dual roles in information acquisition and communication.
In this chapter, we focus on two main categories of visual interaction: body gestures and gaze direction. Our focus on body gestures is motivated by research showing that gesture patterns often change during joint action tasks to become more predictable (van der Wel et al., 2016). Moreover, coordination sometimes emerges between musicians at the level of body sway (Chang et al., 2017). Our focus on gaze direction was motivated by the fact that gaze can serve simultaneously as a means of obtaining information about the world and as a means of communicating one's own attention and intent.