The effect of handedness on spatial and motor representation of pitch patterns in pianists

Eline Adrianne Smit, Makiko Sadakata

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of handedness on pianists’ abilities to adjust their keyboard performance skills to new spatial and motor mappings. Left- and right-handed pianists practiced simple melodies on a regular MIDI piano keyboard (practice) and were then asked to perform these with modified melodic contours (the same or reversed melodic contour causing a change of fingering) and on a reversed MIDI piano keyboard (test). The difference of performance duration between the practice and the test phase as well as the amount of errors played were used as test measures. Overall, a stronger effect for modified melodic contours than for the reversed keyboard was observed. Furthermore, we observed a trend of left-handed pianists to be quicker and more accurate in playing melodies when reversing their fingering with reversed contours in their left-hand performances. This suggests that handedness may influence pianists’ skill to adjust to new spatial and motor mappings.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0195831
Number of pages14
JournalPLoS One
Volume13
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2018 Smit, Sadakata. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Keywords

  • analysis of variance
  • motor ability
  • pianists

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