An itsy bitsy audience: Live performance facilitates infants’ attention and heart rate synchronization

Among our most powerful experiences are those we share with others. Researchers have increasingly sought to investigate responses to socially potent stimuli, such as music, in contexts that are more naturalistic than a traditional psychology lab. Here, we investigated behavioral and physiological responses to either a live concert or a perceptually matched recorded playback on a naïve audience: infants. Two audiences of 6- to 14-month-old infants (N = ∼30 each, total N = 61) watched a musical performance live in a specialized research facility/concert hall (McMaster University LIVELab). Two additional 6- to 14-month-old infant audiences (N = ∼30 each, total N = 59) watched a recorded playback of the same performance in the same auditorium. A third group (same age range, N = 27) watched the recorded playback individually on their family’s device at home. Infants were more engaged in the live performance than the recorded playback, indicated by more overall attention and more sustained attention, and physiological synchrony. Infants at home visually attended at levels comparable to infants in the live performance but their attention was sustained for shorter bouts. Findings suggest that performer–audience interactions and social context play an important role in facilitating attention and coordinating emotional responses to musical performances early in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)