Laura Bishop

• Laura Bishop, Anna Niemand, Sara D'Amario & Werner Goebl (2026). Moving together, feeling together: Body coordination, pupil size, and musical togetherness in classical duo performance. Psychology of Music. ISSN 0305-7356. doi: 10.1177/03057356261436796. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study investigated the relationships between bodily expression, bodily coordination, mental effort, and self-reported experiences of musical togetherness. Singer-pianist duos performed pieces of classical repertoire before and after rehearsing together. Video, head motion, respiration, and pupillometry data were collected. Afterwards, the performers watched a video of their post-rehearsal performance and made continuous ratings of how together they felt. They also provided written descriptions of the cues that informed their togetherness judgements. Our analyses showed stronger head coordination between partners and larger pupil diameter during high-togetherness phrases than during low-togetherness phrases for one of the pieces. Inhalation synchrony and quantity of head motion did not differ between high- and low-togetherness phrases. Pupil size was greater during pre-rehearsal performances than during post-rehearsal performances, suggesting that demands on attention might have reduced after players had jointly constructed a shared interpretation and grown more accustomed to performing together. A thematic analysis of written responses showed that performers’ concept of togetherness related to coherence in musical parameters, moving and breathing together, and sensations of feeling together, shared musical emotion, and effortlessness. We discuss these findings in relation to the musical togetherness model.

• Ivan Pilkov, Laura Bishop & Carlos Cancino-Chacón (2026). Estimating pianists' hand and finger kinematics with markerless motion capture. In Patrice Guyot & Gregoire Bosselut (Ed.), MOCO '26: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Movement and Computing. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9798400725005. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Highly-skilled pianists demonstrate fluent and efficient hand and finger motion. Recent developments in video-based methods for markerless motion capture that rely on deep learning algorithms offer a less intrusive and resource-intensive alternative to traditional marker-based infrared ones. In this work we present an initial look into how such a markerless motion capture system could be developed and utilized for the study of pianists’ hand and finger kinematics. We collect data from different pianists performing technical exercises and present an analysis of the kinematics of hand and finger motion that arise when pianists are challenged by playing at fast and slow tempi. We investigate different kinematic measures and analyze the recorded MIDI to assess the pianists’ strategies for timekeeping and hand coordination and discover certain indications for smoother motions and better control at intermediate tempi. Our results are also in line with previous work in the field and point towards the suitability of this approach for studying pianists’ hand movements.

• Francesca Talamini, Massimo Grassi, Gianmarco Altoè, Elvira Brattico, Anne Caclin & Barbara Carretti [Show all 115 contributors for this article] (2026). Music Ensemble: a large dataset on musicianship, cognition, and personality in musicians and nonmusicians. Scientific Data. 13(1). doi: 10.1038/s41597-026-06654-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Music Ensemble dataset is a large-scale, cross-national database that provides detailed information about the musical, cognitive, personality, and demographic profiles of young adult musicians and nonmusicians. Data were collected from 1438 participants (aged 18–30) across thirty-five research sites in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Participants completed an in-person, in-lab battery of objective tests, including measures of verbal, visuospatial and musical short-term memory, executive functions (updating component), nonverbal reasoning, verbal comprehension, and music perception skills. The battery also included standardized and custom self-report questionnaires assessing music sophistication, music reward, personality traits, socioeconomic status, and demographic characteristics. Music Ensemble was preregistered, and the research protocol followed a standardized procedure across sites. The dataset also includes a large subsample of musicians and nonmusicians that are pair-matched for age, gender, and education (678 pairs). It enables well-powered investigations into the relationship between musical expertise and individual differences in cognition, personality, and demographic variables. It is also suitable for training in statistical and psychometric methods.

• Massimo Grassi, Francesca Talamini, Gianmarco Altoè, Elvira Brattico, Anne Caclin & Barbara Carretti [Show all 110 contributors for this article] (2025). Do Musicians Have Better Short-Term Memory Than Nonmusicians? A Multilab Study. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS). ISSN 2515-2459. 8(4). doi: 10.1177/25152459251379432. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Musicians are often regarded as a positive example of brain plasticity and associated cognitive benefits. This emerges when experienced musicians (e.g., musicians with more than 10 years of music training and practice) are compared with nonmusicians. A frequently observed behavioral finding is a short-term memory advantage of the former over the latter. Although available meta-analysis reported that the effect size of this advantage is medium (Hedges’s g = 0.5), no literature study was adequately powered to estimate reliably an effect of such size. This multilab study has been ideated, realized, and conducted in lab by several groups that have been working on this topic. Our ultimate goal was to provide a community-driven shared and reliable estimate of the musicians’ short-term memory advantage (if any) and set a method and a standard for future studies in neuroscience and psychology comparing musicians and nonmusicians. Thirty-three research units recruited a total of 600 experienced musicians and 600 nonmusicians, a number that is sufficiently large to estimate a small effect size (Hedges’s g = 0.3) with a high statistical power (i.e., 95%). Subsequently, we measured the difference in short-term memory for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli. We also looked at cognitive, personality, and socioeconomic factors that might mediate the difference. Musicians had better short-term memory than nonmusicians for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli with an effect size of, respectively, Hedges’s g s = 1.08 (95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.94, 1.22]; large), 0.16 (95% CI = [0.02 0.30]; very small), and 0.28 (95% CI = [0.15, 0.41]; small). This work sets the basis for sound research practices in studies comparing musicians and nonmusicians and contributes to the ongoing debate on the possible cognitive benefits of musical training.

• Sara D’Amario & Laura Bishop (2025). Self-reported experiences of togetherness in classical music ensembles. Psychology of Music. ISSN 0305-7356. p. 1–19. doi: 10.1177/03057356251381808. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Musicians experience varying degrees of musical togetherness, defined as a sense of social connectedness that they experience with co-performer(s) in music ensembles. Previous investigations focused on optimal experiences and suggested a link between social connections and musical and contextual aspects. However, it is not fully understood how this concept aligns with musicians’ experiences of togetherness. This research analysed experiences of togetherness in classical ensemble performances, based on semi-structured interviews with 22 advanced music students. Thematic content analysis demonstrates the emergence of four main themes associated with togetherness experiences as follows: (1) togetherness sensation, (2) quality of the interpersonal relationships, (3) performance settings, and (4) ensemble skills. This study broadens our understanding of ensemble playing experiences and reveals how togetherness experiences can arise or be negatively affected. These results are valuable to ensemble pedagogy and social interactions.

• Oliver Miles, Adrian Hazzard, Solomiya Moroz, Laura Bishop & Craig Vear (2025). Meaningful interactions in human-AI musicking. In Mariana Seiça & Jordan Wirfs-Brock (Ed.), AM '25: Proceedings of the 20th International Audio Mostly Conference. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9798400720659. p. 58–69. doi: 10.1145/3771594.3771600. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this paper we discuss our latest iteration of RAMI (the Robotic Arm for Musicking Inclusively) as prototype digital score. We deploy RAMI as interactive technology for the purpose of improvisation ensemble work, documenting the narrative journey of a single elite musician–M–as they engage with its nascent qualities over three extended workshop sessions. This study builds in part on the musical togetherness model of human-human interaction [4], and necessarily draws adjacent concepts in robotics, human computer interaction (HCI), and digital score. Recording musicking interactions with RAMI, we elicit and report on M’s thematic perceptions of instances of: familiarization; engagement strategy; decision making; connection, agency, and ensemble; assertions of schemas of RAMI; and moments of enjoying RAMI. Beyond the rich, narrative insight that these six themes offer, we critically assess these as variably (un)certain in nature; as particularly certain when asserting two schemas–RAMI as a dancer, and RAMI as a score, and as indicative of an underlying continuum of musician perception that recognises RAMI as an AI tool for musicking, on the one hand, and on the other hand, as an AI agent for embodied collaboration.

• Laura Bishop, Elpida Hadjidaki-Marder, Sarunas Ledas & Gunnar Liestøl (2025). Motion capture for augmented reality storytelling in archaeology and cultural heritage dissemination: Simulating an animal sacrifice at Ancient Phalasarna. In Timothy Jung, M. Claudia tom Dieck, Seok Chan Jeong, Sung-Hee Kim, Daniel Sahl & S. J. Kim (Ed.), XR and Metaverse: Proceedings of the 9th International XR-Metaverse Conference 2024, Busan, South Korea. Springer. ISSN 9783031779749. p. 209–221. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-77975-6_16. Full text in Research Archive
• Henrik Haraldsen Sveen, Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2025). Cyclic Patterns and Spatial Orientations in Artificial Impulsive Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) Sounds. In Mariana Seiça & Jordan Wirfs-Brock (Ed.), AM '25: Proceedings of the 20th International Audio Mostly Conference. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9798400720659. p. 124–131. doi: 10.1145/3771594.3771651. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation in the neck and spine often triggered by specific sounds. This paper reports a study on the impact of different cyclic patterns and spatial orientations—defined here as the perceived directionality and motion of sound sources in a three-dimensional auditory space—on inducing ASMR experiences. The results demonstrate that both the type of cyclic pattern and the spatial orientation significantly influence the intensity and nature of ASMR experiences. Furthermore, the research explores synthesizing ASMR-inducing sounds while preserving key audio characteristics from acoustically recorded ASMR content. Through survey data analysis and regression modeling, distinct patterns emerge regarding the relationship between personality traits and ASMR experience. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of ASMR as a sensory phenomenon and provide insights into the potential applications of artificially generated ASMR stimuli. Additionally, the research sheds light on the role of spatiality in ASMR experiences and the synthesis of ASMR-inducing sounds for future studies and practical applications

• Simon Høffding, Rebecca Josefine Five Bergstrøm, Laura Bishop, Pedro Pablo Lucas Bravo, Kayla Burnim & Carlos Eduardo Cancino-Chacón [Show all 28 contributors for this article] (2025). Introducing the MusicLab Copenhagen Dataset. Music & Science. 8. doi: 10.1177/20592043241303288. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  MusicLab Copenhagen was a unique research concert featuring the world-renowned Danish String Quartet in a naturalistic setting. The audience was split between one group physically located in the hall, another group listening to a radio broadcast, and a third group watching a live stream. Qualitative and quantitative data were captured from both musicians and audiences, resulting in a comprehensive dataset that can be used to address many research questions. This document introduces the dataset, explains its structure, and reflects on the related data collection, storing, publishing, and archiving processes.

• Laura Bishop (2024). Togetherness in musical interaction. Routledge Open Research. doi: 10.12688/routledgeopenres.18202.1. Full text in Research Archive
• Simon Høffding, Wenbo Yi, Eigil Lippert, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez Sanchez, Laura Bishop & Bruno Laeng [Show all 9 contributors for this article] (2023). Into the Hive-Mind: Shared Absorption and Cardiac Interrelations in Expert and Student String Quartets. Music & Science. 6. doi: 10.1177/20592043231168597. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Expert musicians portray awe-inspiring precision, timing, and phrasing and may be thought to partake in a “hive-mind.” Such a shared musical absorption is characterized by a heightened empathic relation, mutual trust, and a sense that the music “takes over,” thus uniting the performers’ musical intentions. Previous studies have found correlations between empathic concern or shared experience and cardiac synchrony (CS). We aimed to investigate shared musical absorption in terms of CS by analyzing CS in two quartets: a student quartet, the Borealis String Quartet (BSQ), and an expert quartet, the Danish String Quartet (DSQ), world-renowned for their interpretations and cohesion. These two quartets performed the same Haydn excerpt in seven conditions, some of which were designed to disrupt their absorption. Using multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis (MdRQA), we found that: (1) performing resulted in significantly increased CS in both quartets compared with resting; (2) across all conditions, the DSQ had a significantly higher CS than the BSQ; (3) the BSQ's CS was inversely correlated with the degree of disruption; 4) for the DSQ, the CS remained constant across all levels of disruption, besides one added extreme disruption—a sight-reading condition. These findings tentatively support the claim that a sense of shared musical absorption, as well as group expertise, is correlated with CS.

• Monika Smetana, Laura Bishop & Irene Stepniczka (2023). Interfaces of dialogue: A mixed methods approach to investigating intersubjectivity in dyadic improvisations. Music & Science. 6, p. 1–32. doi: 10.1177/20592043231203807. Full text in Research Archive
• Simon Høffding & Laura Bishop (2023). Tightness and looseness: Where to find it and how to measure it? Commentary on "Musical engagement as a duet of tight synchrony and loose interpretability" on Rabinowitch. Physics of Life Reviews. ISSN 1571-0645. doi: 10.1016/j.plrev.2023.09.001. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop, Simon Høffding, Olivier Serge Gabriel Lartillot & Bruno Laeng (2023). Mental Effort and Expressive Interaction in Expert and Student String Quartet Performance. Music & Science. 6. doi: 10.1177/20592043231208000. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Werner Goebl (2023). Joint shaping of musical time: How togetherness emerges in music ensemble performance. In Clemens Wöllner & Justin London (Ed.), Performing Time. Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780192896254. Full text in Research Archive
• Sara D'Amario, Harald Schmidbauer, Angi Roesch, Werner Goebl, Anna Maria Niemand & Laura Bishop (2023). Interperformer coordination in piano-singing duo performances: phrase structure and empathy impact. Psychological Research. ISSN 0340-0727. 87, p. 2559–2582. doi: 10.1007/s00426-023-01818-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Musicians’ body motion plays a fundamental role in ensemble playing, by supporting sound production, communication, and expressivity. This research investigates how Western classical musicians’ head motion during ensemble performances relates to a piece’s phrase structure and musicians’ empathic perspective taking (EPT) profile. Twenty-four advanced piano and singing students took part in the study, and their EPT score was pre-assessed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. High and low EPT duos were formed, and musicians were paired with a co-performer from the same and the other EPT group. Musicians rehearsed Fauré’s Automne and Schumann’s Die Kartenlegerin, and performed the pieces one time before and three times after rehearsal. Motion capture data of the musicians’ front head, audio, and MIDI recordings of the performances were collected and analysed. Similarity in musicians’ head motion and tendency to lead/lag their co-performer were computed by extracting, respectively, power and phase difference of the cross-wavelet transforms of the velocity curves of each paired marker. Results demonstrate that the power of interperformer coordination corresponds to the piece’s phrase levels and that singer’s EPT can impact the leader-follower relationships between musicians, depending on piece and take number. In the Fauré piece, the higher the singer’s EPT score, the higher the tendency for the singer to lead and pianist to follow in take 3, and the lower the tendency for the singer to lead and pianist to follow in take 2. These results contribute to a further understanding of the mechanisms underpinning social interactions, by revealing the complexity of the association between empathy and body motion in ensembles in promoting and diffusing leadership between musicians.

• Merve Akca, Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski, Bruno Laeng & Laura Bishop (2023). Recognition of brief sounds in rapid serial auditory presentation. PLOS ONE. 18(4). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284396. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Two experiments were conducted to test the role of participant factors (i.e., musical sophistication, working memory capacity) and stimulus factors (i.e., sound duration, timbre) on auditory recognition using a rapid serial auditory presentation paradigm. Participants listened to a rapid stream of very brief sounds ranging from 30 to 150 milliseconds and were tested on their ability to distinguish the presence from the absence of a target sound selected from various sound sources placed amongst the distracters. Experiment 1a established that brief exposure to stimuli (60 to 150 milliseconds) does not necessarily correspond to impaired recognition. In Experiment 1b we found evidence that 30 milliseconds of exposure to the stimuli significantly impairs recognition of single auditory targets, but the recognition for voice and sine tone targets impaired the least, suggesting that the lower limit required for successful recognition could be lower than 30 milliseconds for voice and sine tone targets. Critically, the effect of sound duration on recognition completely disappeared when differences in musical sophistication were controlled for. Participants’ working memory capacities did not seem to predict their recognition performances. Our behavioral results extend the studies oriented to understand the processing of brief timbres under temporal constraint by suggesting that the musical sophistication may play a larger role than previously thought. These results can also provide a working hypothesis for future research, namely, that underlying neural mechanisms for the processing of various sound sources may have different temporal constraints.

• Henrik Herrebrøden, Thomas Espeseth & Laura Bishop (2023). Mental Effort in Elite and Nonelite Rowers. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (JSEP). ISSN 0895-2779. 45(4), p. 208–223. doi: 10.1123/jsep.2022-0164. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Mental effort (intensity of attention) in elite sports has remained a debated topic and a challenging phenomenon to measure. Thus, a quasi-ecological laboratory study was conducted to investigate mental effort in elite rowers as compared with a group of nonelites. Findings suggest that eye-tracking measures—specifically, blink rates and pupil size—can serve as valid indicators of mental effort in physically demanding sport tasks. Furthermore, findings contradict the notion that elite athletes spend less cognitive effort than their lower-level peers. Specifically, elites displayed similar levels of self-reported effort and performance decrement with increasing mental load and significantly more mental effort overall as measured by pupil-size increase (relative to baseline) during rowing trials as compared with the nonelites in the sample. Future studies on eye tracking in sports may include investigations of mental effort in addition to selective attention during physically demanding tasks.

• Sara D'Amario, Sten Ternström, Werner Goebl & Laura Bishop (2023). Body motion of choral singers. Frontiers in Psychology. 14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1220904. Full text in Research Archive
• Sara D'Amario, Sten Ternström, Werner Goebl & Laura Bishop (2023). Impact of singing togetherness and task complexity on choristers' body motion. In Sara D'Amario, Sten Ternström & Anders Friberg (Ed.), Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference. KTH Royal Institute of Technology. ISSN 9789180408653. Full text in Research Archive
• Maham Riaz, Finn Upham, Kayla Burnim, Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2023). Comparing inertial motion sensors for capturing human micromotion, Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2023. SMC Network . ISSN 9789152773727. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.8316051. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The paper presents a study of the noise level of accelerometer data from a mobile phone compared to three commercially available IMU-based devices (AX3, Equivital, and Movesense) and a marker-based infrared motion capture system (Qualisys). The sensors are compared in static positions and for measuring human micromotion, with larger motion sequences as reference. The measurements show that all but one of the IMU-based devices capture motion with an accuracy and precision that is far below human micromotion. However, their data and representations differ, so care should be taken when comparing data between devices.

• Laura Bishop (2023). Focus of Attention Affects Togetherness Experiences and Body Interactivity in Piano Duos. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. ISSN 1931-3896. doi: 10.1037/aca0000555. Full text in Research Archive
• Henrik Herrebrøden, Alexander Refsum Jensenius, Thomas Espeseth, Laura Bishop & Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski (2023). Cognitive load causes kinematic changes in both elite and non-elite rowers. Human Movement Science. ISSN 0167-9457. 90. doi: 10.1016/j.humov.2023.103113. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The current motor literature suggests that extraneous cognitive load may affect performance and kinematics in a primary motor task. A common response to increased cognitive demand, as observed in past studies, might be to reduce movement complexity and revert to previously learned movement patterns, in line with the progression-regression hypothesis. However, according to several accounts of automaticity, motor experts should be able to cope with dual task demands without detriment to their performance and kinematics. To test this, we conducted an experiment asking elite and non-elite rowers to use a rowing ergometer under conditions of varying task load. We employed single-task conditions with low cognitive load (i.e., rowing only) and dual-task conditions with high cognitive load (i.e., rowing and solving arithmetic problems). The results of the cognitive load manipulations were mostly in line with our hypotheses. Overall, participants reduced movement complexity, for example by reverting towards tighter coupling of kinematic events, in their dual-task performance as compared to single-task performance. The between-group kinematic differences were less clear. In contradiction to our hypotheses, we found no significant interaction between skill level and cognitive load, suggesting that the rowers' kinematics were affected by cognitive load irrespective of skill level. Overall, our findings contradict several past findings and automaticity theories, and suggest that attentional resources are required for optimal sports performance.

• Monika Smetana, Irene Stepniczka & Laura Bishop (2022). COME_IN: A qualitative framework for content, meanings and intersubjectivity in free dyadic improvisations. Nordic journal of music therapy. ISSN 0809-8131. p. 1–22. doi: 10.1080/08098131.2022.2084638. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Introduction A growing body of research reflects the interest in meaningful moments in music therapeutic treatment and the client--therapist relationship; however, little insight has been given into the client’s subjective experience and the interweaving processes between a therapist and a client. Central to this initial research is the question of how dialogue as a substantial relational quality emerges and intersubjectively manifests in free, dyadic improvisations, as is typical in humanistic and/or psychodynamic approaches to music therapy practice. This paper presents the qualitative part of a mixed-methods, multi-phase feasibility study intended to develop a framework for non-clinical and clinical research. Method In a non-clinical setting with adult participants (n=9) and trained music therapists (n=8), a total of 17 free dyadic piano improvisations were recorded and verbally reflected on in semi-structured debriefing interviews. These focused on moments or time periods where one or both improvising people had the feeling that something pivotal happened between them. A qualitative summarizing content analysis of the transcribed interviews, including a selective coding process, was conducted to investigate both perspectives. Results As a two-part category system, the framework for content, meanings and intersubjectivity (COME_IN) covers (a) meanings, i.e. different intra- and interpersonal experiences indicating developments and states of relationship in dyadic improvisations, and (b) intersubjectivity, operationalized in temporal and/or content-related overlaps of subjective experiences. Discussion Showing manifold patterns of how meaning and intersubjectivity nonverbally arise between people, the framework provides a solid base for further mixed-methods analyses. Clinical studies are needed to test and refine the categories.

• Michael Joseph Krzyzaniak & Laura Bishop (2022). Professor Plucky—Expressive body motion in human- robot musical ensembles. In Kristin Carlson (Eds.), MOCO '22: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Movement and Computing. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9781450387163. doi: 10.1145/3537972.3537983. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  When people play music together, they move their bodies, and that movement plays an important role in the activity of group music making. In contrast, when robots play music with people, the robots are usually stiff and mechanical in their movement. In general, it is not well understood how the movement of such robots affects how people interact with them, or how the robot movement should be designed in order to promote certain features of interaction. As an initial exploration into these questions, we built a prototype guitar plucking robot that plucks the strings with either a) kinetic plucking mechanisms that are designed to have visually appealing movement, or b) control plucking mechanisms that do not visually move. In a pilot study we found that when guitarists play with the robot, they move their hands more and look at the robot more when it uses the kinetic mechanisms as opposed to the control ones. However, they do not report preferring the kinetic mechanisms. These preliminary findings suggest some very clear hypotheses for future followup studies.

• Laura Bishop & Peter E. Keller (2022). Instrumental ensembles. In Gary E. McPherson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance, Volume 2. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780190058869. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190058869.013.21. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Instrumental ensemble playing is a creative process involving real-time interpersonal coordination of sounds, gestures, and musical ideas by two or more musicians. In this chapter, we discuss the psychological mechanisms supporting ensemble coordination. Musicians’ abilities to anticipate, attend, and adapt to intentional and unintentional variability in each other’s playing are central to maintaining coordination during expressive performance. These abilities involve a combination of effortful and automatic processes, which musicians draw on to different degrees, depending on the musical context. Coordination is also partly supported by the affordances (action possibilities) that emerge from the evolving relationships between musicians and their physical environment. For many ensembles, offline preparation sets the groundwork for coordination in later performances, giving musicians opportunities to practice technical skills, familiarize themselves with each other’s playing style, and establish shared landmarks relating to their interpretation of the music. When coordination is successful, a shared sense of togetherness emerges among ensemble musicians. Feelings of togetherness may strengthen as musicians find themselves aware and highly focused on each other’s contributions to the performance, and at the same time able to coordinate seemingly without effort. Following our discussion of psychological mechanisms, we outline the implications that this research has for music education, the development of techniques to enable ensemble playing in networked conditions, and the development of technologies for musical interaction.

• Merve Akca, Laura Bishop, Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski & Bruno Laeng (2022). Human voices escape the auditory attentional blink: Evidence from detections and pupil responses. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 165. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2022.105928. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Attentional selection of a second target in a rapid stream of stimuli embedding two targets tends to be briefly impaired when two targets are presented in close temporal proximity, an effect known as an attentional blink (AB). Two target sounds (T1 and T2) were embedded in a rapid serial auditory presentation of environmental sounds with a short (Lag 3) or long lag (Lag 9). Participants were to first identify T1 (bell or sine tone) and then to detect T2 (present or absent). Individual stimuli had durations of either 30 or 90 ms, and were presented in streams of 20 sounds. The T2 varied in category: human voice, cello, or dog sound. Previous research has introduced pupillometry as a useful marker of the intensity of cognitive processing and attentional allocation in the visual AB paradigm. Results suggest that the interplay of stimulus factors is critical for target detection accuracy and provides support for the hypothesis that the human voice is the least likely to show an auditory AB (in the 90 ms condition). For the other stimuli, accuracy for T2 was significantly worse at Lag 3 than at Lag 9 in the 90 ms condition, suggesting the presence of an auditory AB. When AB occurred (at Lag 3), we observed smaller pupil dilations, time-locked to the onset of T2, compared to Lag 9, reflecting lower attentional processing when ’blinking’ during target detection. Taken together, these findings support the conclusion that human voices escape the AB and that the pupillary changes are consistent with the so-called T2 attentional deficit. In addition, we found some indication that salient stimuli like human voices could require a less intense allocation of attention, or noradrenergic potentiation, compared to other auditory stimuli.

• Sara D'Amario, Werner Goebl & Laura Bishop (2022). Judgment of togetherness in performances by musical duos. Frontiers in Psychology. 13. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.997752. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Musicians experience varying degrees of togetherness with their co-performers when playing in ensembles. However, little is known about how togetherness is experienced by audiences and how interpersonal dynamics in body motion and sound support the judgment of togetherness. This research investigates audience sensitivity to audio and visual markers of interperformer coordination and expressivity in ensembles, in relation to modality of stimulus presentation and audience music background. A set of duo ensemble performances, comprising motion capture recordings of the musicians' upper bodies and instruments, were presented to participants with varying music background, including novices and semi-professional musicians. Participants were required to: (i) watch and listen, (ii) only watch, and (iii) only listen to the selected recordings, whilst providing dynamic ratings of how much togetherness between musicians they perceived. Results demonstrate that sound intensity and similarity in right arm motion (quantified using cross-wavelet transform analysis) were significant predictors of rated togetherness in novices, whilst sound synchronization and chest motion coordination predicted togetherness responses in semi-professional musicians. These results suggest the relevance of the quality of body motion coordination and of certain features of the audio outputs in the audience perception of togetherness. This research contributes to a better understanding of the perceptual mechanisms supporting socio-cognitive judgments of joint action activities.

• Laura Bishop, Carlos Eduardo Cancino-Chacón & Werner Goebl (2022). Beyond synchronization: Body gestures and gaze direction in duo performance. In Renee Timmers, Freya Bailes & Helena Daffern (Ed.), Together in Music: Coordination, expression, participation. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198860761. p. 182–188. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198860761.003.0023. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent years have seen a rise in interest, from a diversity of fields, in the musical ensemble as an exemplary form of creative group behavior. Musical ensembles can be understood and investigated as high functioning small group organizations that have coordinative structures in place to perform under pressure within strict temporal boundaries. Rehearsals and performances exemplify fruitful contexts for emergent creative behaviour, where novel musical interpretations are negotiated and discovered through improvisatory interaction. Furthermore, group music-making can be an emotionally and socially rewarding experience that enables positive outcomes for wellbeing and development. This book brings together these different perspectives into one coherent volume, offering insight into the musical ensemble from different analytical levels. Part 1 starts from the meso-level, considering ensembles as creative teams and investigating how musical groups interact at a social and organizational level. Part 2 then zooms in to consider musical coordination and interaction at a micro-level, when considering group music-making as forms of joint action. Finally, a macro-level perspective is taken in Part 3, examining the health and wellbeing affordances associated with acoustical, expressive, and emotional joint behavior. Each part contains a balance of review chapters showcasing the most recent developments in each area of research, followed by demonstrative case studies featuring various ensemble practices and processes. A rich and multidisciplinary reflection on ensemble music practice, this volume will be an insightful read for music students, teachers, academics, and professionals with an interest in the dynamics of group behavior within a musical context.

• Laura Bishop, Alexander Refsum Jensenius & Bruno Laeng (2021). Musical and Bodily Predictors of Mental Effort in String Quartet Music: An Ecological Pupillometry Study of Performers and Listeners. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653021. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Music performance can be cognitively and physically demanding. These demands vary across the course of a performance as the content of the music changes. More demanding passages require performers to focus their attention more intensity, or expend greater “mental effort.” To date, it remains unclear what effect different cognitive-motor demands have on performers' mental effort. It is likewise unclear how fluctuations in mental effort compare between performers and perceivers of the same music. We used pupillometry to examine the effects of different cognitive-motor demands on the mental effort used by performers and perceivers of classical string quartet music. We collected pupillometry, motion capture, and audio-video recordings of a string quartet as they performed a rehearsal and concert (for live audience) in our lab. We then collected pupillometry data from a remote sample of musically-trained listeners, who heard the audio recordings (without video) that we captured during the concert. We used a modelling approach to assess the effects of performers' bodily effort (head and arm motion; sound level; performers' ratings of technical difficulty), musical complexity (performers' ratings of harmonic complexity; a score-based measure of harmonic tension), and expressive difficulty (performers' ratings of expressive difficulty) on performers' and listeners' pupil diameters. Our results show stimulating effects of bodily effort and expressive difficulty on performers' pupil diameters, and stimulating effects of expressive difficulty on listeners' pupil diameters. We also observed negative effects of musical complexity on both performers and listeners, and negative effects of performers' bodily effort on listeners, which we suggest may reflect the complex relationships that these features share with other aspects of musical structure. Looking across the concert, we found that both of the quartet violinists (who exchanged places halfway through the concert) showed more dilated pupils during their turns as 1st violinist than when playing as 2nd violinist, suggesting that they experienced greater arousal when “leading” the quartet in the 1st violin role. This study shows how eye tracking and motion capture technologies can be used in combination in an ecological setting to investigate cognitive processing in music performance.

• Laura Bishop, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez Sanchez, Bruno Laeng, Alexander Refsum Jensenius & Simon Høffding (2021). Move like everyone is watching: Social context affects head motion and gaze in string quartet performance. Journal of New Music Research. ISSN 0929-8215. doi: 10.1080/09298215.2021.1977338. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Ensemble musicians engage with each other visually through glances and body motion. We conducted a case study to test how string quartet musicians would respond to playing conditions that were meant to discourage or promote visually communicative behaviour. A quartet performed in different seating configurations under rehearsal and concert conditions. Quantity of head motion was reduced when musicians’ gaze was constrained. Differences in gaze and body motion between musicians reflected their musical roles in the ensemble. Overall, our findings suggest that gaze and motion dynamics vary within and between performances in response to changing musical, situational and social factors.

• Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2020). Reliability of two infrared motion capture systems in a music performance setting. In Simone Spagnol & Andrea Valle (Ed.), Proceedings of the 17th Sound and Music Computing Conference. Axea sas/SMC Network. ISSN 9788894541502. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper describes a comparative analysis of tracking quality in two infrared marker-based motion capture systems: one older but high-end (Qualisys, purchased in 2009) and the other newer and mid-range (OptiTrack, purchased in 2019). We recorded performances by a string quartet with both systems simultaneously, using the same frame rate. Our recording set-up included a combination of moving markers (affixed to musicians’ bodies) and stationary markers (affixed to music stands). Higher noise levels were observed in Qualisys recordings of stationary markers than in OptiTrack recordings, as well as a greater spatial range, though OptiTrack recordings had a higher rate of outliers (“spikes” in the signal). In moving markers, increased quantity of motion was associated with increased betweensystem error rates. Both systems showed minimal withintrial drift but a reduction in recording accuracy and precision over the duration of the experiment. Overall, our results show that the older/high-end system (Qualisys) produced slightly lower-quality recordings than the newer/midrange system (OptiTrack). We discuss how our findings may inform researchers’ interpretations of motion capture data, particularly when capturing the types of motion that are important for performing music.

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• Laura Bishop (2026). In Pursuit of Musical Togetherness: Thoughts and Behaviour in Ensemble Playing. Full text in Research Archive
• Alexander Refsum Jensenius & Laura Bishop (2026). Bodies in Motion in the Concert Hall and Beyond. doi: https:/moco26.movementcomputing.org/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Motion is at the core of how we experience and understand the world, express ourselves, and interact with others. At RITMO, we explore motion that is artistic, expressive, and interactive within a highly interdisciplinary research environment that integrates musicology, psychology, and technology. Increasingly, we are moving our research out of the lab and into the real world, where we can study people behaving as they normally do and capture unique occurrences that cannot be simulated in laboratory conditions. This transition is illustrated by the MusicLab and Bodies in Concert projects, which investigate bodily activity and experiences in performers and audience members during live concerts. From data collected during a series of symphony orchestra concerts, we are learning how musicians coordinate their expressive motion and how audiences synchronize in their bodily responses to the music. We are also learning how to adapt new technologies for real-world data capture, and exploring how captured data can be used for artistic purposes. In this talk, we will discuss some of the concepts, methods, and findings from this line of research.

• Laura Bishop (2025). Individuality and collectivity in professional orchestra string sections: Gauging the strength of coordination in body motion. Full text in Research Archive
• Oliver Miles, Adrian Hazzard, Solomiya Moroz, Laura Bishop & Craig Vear (2025). Meaningful interactions in human-AI musicking. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2025). Bodies in Concert: Assessing group coordination in live concert settings. Full text in Research Archive
• Henrik Sveen, Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2025). Cyclic Patterns and Spatial Orientations in Artificial Impulsive Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) Sounds. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation in the neck and spine often triggered by specific sounds. This paper reports a study on the impact of different cyclic patterns and spatial orientations—defined here as the perceived directionality and motion of sound sources in a three-dimensional auditory space—on inducing ASMR experiences. The results demonstrate that both the type of cyclic pattern and the spatial orientation significantly influence the intensity and nature of ASMR experiences. Furthermore, the research explores synthesizing ASMR-inducing sounds while preserving key audio characteristics from acoustically recorded ASMR content. Through survey data analysis and regression modeling, distinct patterns emerge regarding the relationship between personality traits and ASMR experience. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of ASMR as a sensory phenomenon and provide insights into the potential applications of artificially generated ASMR stimuli. Additionally, the research sheds light on the role of spatiality in ASMR experiences and the synthesis of ASMR-inducing sounds for future studies and practical applications

• Liv Merve Akca Abrahamsson, Laura Bishop, Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski & Bruno Laeng (2024). Are human voices special in the way we attend to them? Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop, Elpida Hadjidaki-Marder, Sarunas Ledas & Gunnar Liestøl (2024). Motion capture for augmented reality storytelling in archaeology and cultural heritage dissemination: Simulating an animal sacrifice at Ancient Phalasarna. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2024). Coordination and individuality in orchestral string sections. Full text in Research Archive
• Sara D'Amario & Laura Bishop (2024). Self-Reported Experiences of Musical Togetherness in Music Ensembles. Full text in Research Archive
• Sara D'Amario & Laura Bishop (2024). Self-Reported Experiences of Musical Togetherness in Music Ensembles. Full text in Research Archive
• Liv Merve Akca Abrahamsson, Laura Bishop, Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski & Bruno Laeng (2024). Are human voices ‘special’ in the way we attend to them? Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Sara D'Amario (2024). Methods tracking four-hand piano performances. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Dongho Kwak (2024). Ignoring a noisy metronome during dyadic drumming. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Finn Upham (2023). Bodies in Concert. doi: https:/www.uio.no/ritmo/english/projects/Bodies-in-Concert/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Increasingly, research on music performance is moving out of controlled laboratory settings and into concert halls, where there are opportunities to explore how performance unfolds in high-arousal conditions and how performers and audiences interact. In this session, we will present findings from a series of live research concerts that we carried out with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra performed the same program of classical repertoire for four audiences of schoolchildren and an audience of families. Orchestra members wore sensors that collected cardiac activity, respiration, and body motion data, and the conductor additionally wore a full-body motion capture suit and eye-tracking glasses. Audience members in some of the concerts were invited to wear reflective wristbands, and wristband motion was captured using infrared video recording. We will begin the session with a discussion of the scientific and methodological challenges that arose during the project, in particular relating to the large scale of data capture (>50 musicians and hundreds of audience members), the visible nature of research that is carried out on a concert stage, and the development of procedures for aligning data from different recording modalities. Next, we will present findings from two lines of analysis that investigate different aspects of behavioural and physiological coordination within the orchestra. One analysis investigates the effects of audience noise and musical roles on coherence in (i) cardiac rate and variability and (ii) respiratory phase and rate. The second analysis investigates the effects of musical demands on synchronization of body sway, bowing, and respiration in string sections. We will conclude the session with an open discussion of how live concert research might be optimized.

• Henrik Herrebrøden, Thomas Espeseth & Laura Bishop (2023). Cognitive load affects effort, performance, and kinematics in elite and non-elite rowers. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (JSEP). ISSN 0895-2779. 45(S1), p. S83–S83. doi: 10.1123/jsep.2023-0077. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The extent to which elite athletes depend on mental effort and attention to task execution has been a debated topic. Some studies have suggested that motor experts might be relatively unaffected in the face of distraction and that they might even perform better when they attend to extraneous cognitive stimuli (for example in a dual-task paradigm), as compared to single-task conditions where they concentrate fully on a sports task. However, task complexity and participants’ skill levels have so far been relatively modest in most dual-task studies. To address gaps in past research, a multi-method study was conducted using a rowing ergometer task. Participants were nine male elite rowers from the Norwegian national rowing team, preparing for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, as well as nine male recreational rowers. Participants engaged in three-minute rowing trials of varying task demands, including single-task conditions (focusing on rowing only) and dual-task conditions (focusing on rowing and solving arithmetic problems). Performance and mental effort were measured via ergometer data (i.e., rowing speed values) and eye-tracking measures (i.e., blink rates and pupil size measurements), respectively. Movement kinematics was measured by motion capture technology. The results suggested that adding extraneous cognitive load led to performance decline and increased mental effort across all participants. Both elites and non-elites demonstrated kinematic changes when going from single-task to dual-task performance. That is, kinematic events in participants’ lower-body and upper-body segments became more temporally coupled, and more in line with movement patterns associated with novice athletes when the extraneous cognitive load was added. This study contradicts several past findings and suggests that elite athletes rely on attentional resources to execute fundamental aspects of their performance. Funding source: Research Council of Norway.

• Laura Bishop, Simon Høffding, Olivier Serge Gabriel Lartillot & Bruno Laeng (2023). Mental effort and expressive interaction in expert and student string quartet performance. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop, Anna Maria Niemand, Sara D'Amario & Werner Goebl (2023). Coordinated head motion predicts cognitive effort and experiences of musical togetherness in singing-piano duos. Full text in Research Archive
• Sara D'Amario, Sten Ternström, Werner Goebl & Laura Bishop (2023). Impact of singing togetherness and task complexity on choristers' body motion. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop, Geoffray Bonnin & Jeremy Frey (2023). Analyzing physiological data collected during music listening: An introduction. Full text in Research Archive
• Remy Richard Martin, Ian Cross, Finn Upham, Laura Bishop, Solveig Sørbø & Frederik Øland (2023). What can one learn from more naturalistic concert research? Full text in Research Archive
• Maham Riaz, Finn Upham, Kayla Burnim, Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2023). Comparing inertial motion sensors for capturing human micromotion. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The paper presents a study of the noise level of accelerometer data from a mobile phone compared to three commercially available IMU-based devices (AX3, Equivital, and Movesense) and a marker-based infrared motion capture system (Qualisys). The sensors are compared in static positions and for measuring human micromotion, with larger motion sequences as reference. The measurements show that all but one of the IMU-based devices capture motion with an accuracy and precision that is far below human micromotion. However, their data and representations differ, so care should be taken when comparing data between devices.

• Laura Bishop, Simon Høffding, Bruno Laeng & Olivier Lartillot (2023). Mental effort and expressive interaction in expert and student string quartet performance. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Bruno Laeng (2022). Expertise modulates the relationship between musical demands and mental effort. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2022). Intersubjectivity and musical togetherness: What is the overlap? Full text in Research Archive
• Michael Joseph Krzyzaniak & Laura Bishop (2022). Professor Plucky—Expressive body motion in human- robot musical ensembles. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2022). Emergent coordination of ancillary gestures motivates musical and interperformer engagement during group music-making. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2022). Shared attention and shared expressive goals affect classical piano duos' playing quality and experiences of togetherness. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2022). Review of “Performing music research: Methods in music education, psychology, and performance science”. Music & Science. doi: 10.1177/20592043221125318. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2022). Attention focus affects togetherness and body interactivity in piano duos. Full text in Research Archive
• Merve Akca, Laura Bishop, Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski & Bruno Laeng (2022). Tracing the Temporal Limits of Auditory Information Processing with Pupillometry. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop, Alexander Refsum Jensenius & Bruno Laeng (2021). Quartet Body Motion and Pupillometry Dataset. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4888176. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This dataset contains performance data collected during an experiment with a string quartet, and listening data collected during a follow-up experiment using recordings from the performance experiment. Performance data were collected in December 2019 as part of an experiment on how communicative body motion is affected by the presence of an audience and manipulations of visual contact between musicians. The experiment also investigated how different performance demands affect musicians' mental effort. A string quartet comprising advanced music students played pieces from their repertoire in rehearsal and concert conditions.

• Laura Bishop, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez Sanchez, Bruno Laeng, Alexander Refsum Jensenius & Simon Høffding (2021). Social context affects head motion and gaze in string quartet rehearsal and concert performance. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop (2021). Musical togetherness: The social and artistic rewards of ensemble playing. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Werner Goebl (2021). Shaping musical ensemble performance: How ensemble musicians come up with a shared interpretation. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Werner Goebl (2021). Togetherness in expressive musical interaction: Effects of social presence on head motion, gaze, and arousal. Full text in Research Archive
• Laura Bishop & Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2020). Reliability of two infrared motion capture systems in a music performance setting. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper describes a comparative analysis of tracking quality in two infrared marker-based motion capture systems: one older but high-end (Qualisys, purchased in 2009) and the other newer and mid-range (OptiTrack, purchased in 2019). We recorded performances by a string quartet with both systems simultaneously, using the same frame rate. Our recording set-up included a combination of moving markers (affixed to musicians’ bodies) and stationary markers (affixed to music stands). Higher noise levels were observed in Qualisys recordings of stationary markers than in OptiTrack recordings, as well as a greater spatial range, though OptiTrack recordings had a higher rate of outliers (“spikes” in the signal). In moving markers, increased quantity of motion was associated with increased between-system error rates. Both systems showed minimal within-trial drift but a reduction in recording accuracy and precision over the duration of the experiment. Overall, our results show that the older/high-end system (Qualisys) produced slightly lower-quality recordings than the newer/mid-range system (OptiTrack). We discuss how our findings may inform researchers’ interpretations of motion capture data, particularly when capturing the types of motion that are important for performing music.

• Monika Smetana, Laura Bishop & Irene Stepniczka (2020). Dialogue in music therapy piano partner-play improvisations: First results from an exploratory feasibility study. Full text in Research Archive
• Irene Stepniczka, Laura Bishop & Monika Smetana (2020). Meaningful situations during “partner-play” improvisations: A feasibility study applying a mixed methods approach. Full text in Research Archive

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