Eye gaze as a means of giving and seeking information during musical interaction

During skilled music ensemble performance, a multi-layered network of interaction processes allows musicians to negotiate common interpretations of ambiguously-notated music in real-time. This study investigated the conditions that encourage visual interaction during duo performance. Duos recorded performances of a new piece before and after a period of rehearsal. Mobile eye tracking and motion capture were used in combination to map uni- and bidirectional eye gaze patterns. Musicians watched each other more during temporally-unstable passages than during regularly-timed passages. They also watched each other more after rehearsal than before. Duo musicians may seek visual interaction with each other primarily, but not exclusively, when coordination is threatened by temporal instability. Visual interaction increases as musicians become familiar with the piece, suggesting that they visually monitor each other once a shared interpretation of the piece is established. Visual monitoring of co-performers’ movements and attention may facilitate feelings of engagement and high-level creative collaboration.