Presenting Movement in a Computer-Based Dance Tutor

This article addresses how to present movement information to learners as part of a larger project on developing a nonconventional computational system that teaches ballet. The requirements of such a system are first described, and then discoveries regarding the first requirement, presenting movement to a user, are discussed. Background research regarding how people learn movement, hypotheses concerning presenting movement with computer animation versus videotape, and an experiment testing those hypotheses are presented. The experiment required individuals to perform movements after viewing them in one of the formats. Each participant viewed a movement sequence multiple times and then was evaluated on his or her performance of that movement by two expert judges. Animations resulted in higher performance ratings for individuals with some previous dance experience. Format did not affect performance for other learners. This result implies that domain knowledge interacts with presentation format in learning ballet. These results will influence the design and implementation of a computer-based dance tutor under development, and they point to several interesting research directions, including exploring the effects of multimodal sensory presentations and prior knowledge in learning movement.