Factors Influencing Listeners’ Perception of Expressiveness for a Conducted Performance

This study investigated (a) how participants’ (N = 116) real-time ratings of perceived expressiveness were influenced by observing conducted musical stimuli from five observational perspectives characterized by various combinations of visual audio and audiovisual presentation; (b) factors that may have influenced participants’ expressiveness ratings, including level of college music education, researcher-declared conductor behaviors, and participant-declared factors; and (c) assessment of the validity and reliability of the Personal Digital Assistant with Continuous Response Digital Interface software (PDA-CRDI) used in this study Participants’ mean perception of expressiveness rating for audio-only stimuli was significantly higher than those for both visual-only stimuli, as well as for the audiovisual stimuli presented from the audience perspective. Graduate level music majors commented with greater frequency than expected on conductor behavior and less than expected on musical stimuli. The factors Musical Experience with the Stimuli and Conductor Behavior were rated significantly more influential than Performer Behaviors. The PDA-CRDI was found to be a markedly reliable and moderately valid method for measuring continual response data.