Influence of Visual Information on Auditory Perception of Marimba Stroke Types

While cross-modal interactions have been well explored in speech perception, there has been comparatively little research on musical contexts. Such an effect would be quite interesting as music is typically considered to be a primarily auditory experience. Percussionists must use a large amount of physical motion to produce sound. While differences in the physical gestures used to produce different stroke types is quite clear visually, the audible effect of these physical gestures is far more ambiguous. These factors make evaluation of stroke type (staccato, normal, legato) on percussion instruments a strong candidate for the study of the influence of visual information on auditory perception. The present study investigates the degree to which visual information affects the auditory perception of stroke type. Specifically, we are interested in the resolution of conflicting visual and auditory information, and the degree to which visual information from physical gestures made by the performer might influence listeners’ auditory perception of stroke type.