Band Musicians' Performance and Eye Contact as Influenced by Loss of a Visual and/or Aural Stimulus

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of losing a visual (conductor) and/or aural (ensemble) stimulus on the ability of band members to perform a piece of music with an ensemble. Subjects were 120 undergraduate band members who individually played their instrument while viewing a videotape of a conductor and listening to a band via headphones. After the first 16 measures, experimental groups lost the sound of the band, the picture of the conductor, or both. The control group continued to view and hear the full stimulus tape and received the highest accuracy ratings. Subjects in the group that could only see the conductor were rated almost identically with those who could only hear the ensemble, and both were rated higher than the group that lost the entire stimulus. Videotapes of control-group subjects were analyzed for instances of eye contact with the conductor. These subjects looked up at the conductor nearly 28% of the time, with glances that averaged just under 1 second each.