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| Project Details |
| Funding Scheme : | General Research Fund | ||||||||||||
| Project Number : | 14622818 | ||||||||||||
| Project Title(English) : | Understanding the role of visual recognition of musical notation in music sight-reading | ||||||||||||
| Project Title(Chinese) : | 視覺辨識音符的能力在音樂視奏之角色 | ||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(English) : | Prof Wong, Yetta Kwai-Ling | ||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : | |||||||||||||
| Department : | Dept of Educational Psychology | ||||||||||||
| Institution : | The Chinese University of Hong Kong | ||||||||||||
| E-mail Address : | yetta.wong@cuhk.edu.hk | ||||||||||||
| Tel : | 3943 3410 | ||||||||||||
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
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| Panel : | Humanities, Social Sciences | ||||||||||||
| Subject Area : | Education | ||||||||||||
| Exercise Year : | 2018 / 19 | ||||||||||||
| Fund Approved : | 497,400 | ||||||||||||
| Project Status : | Completed | ||||||||||||
| Completion Date : | 31-8-2021 | ||||||||||||
| Project Objectives : |
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| Abstract as per original application (English/Chinese): |
In educational settings, learners often need to efficiently perceive and extract information from visual inputs, be they words, faces, musical notation or figures. While the visual perceptual challenge is common to many domains of learning, we know little about its role in education since this research area is relatively understudied.
This proposal focuses on the role of visual perceptual ability in a type of real-world skilled reading – music sight-reading. Sight-reading refers to the ability to play a piece of music when one reads the score for the first time. It is one of the most important skills to acquire in music education, with a wide range of skill levels in the population. These make it an ideal window to understand how visual perception affects skilled reading and education in general.
The proposed project will examine the role of visual discrimination of musical notation patterns in predicting and enhancing music sight-reading abilities. Study One will use an individual-difference approach to build a new theoretical model on the basic cognitive abilities underlying sight-reading, including the ability in reading musical notation that was missing in previous studies. Study Two will use an experimental approach to test whether improved visual perceptual ability in the laboratory can transfer to enhanced sight-reading, a real-world complex skill that involves coordinated information processing in multiple modalities.
This research will have important theoretical impacts: First, it will build a new cognitive theory of music sight-reading that takes into account the role of visual perceptual ability, a missing component in the current model. Second, it will establish the causal relationship between visual perceptual abilities and sight-reading. Third, the findings will serve as a proof of concept of the role of visual perceptual learning in education in general. It is well expected that theoretical insights generated from this proposal will be applicable to other domains of skilled reading requiring visual perceptual extraction of visual codes, such as Chinese and English reading.
Pedagogically, the findings will provide an empirically tested solution to promote perceptual learning of musical notation, which addresses a long-standing problem in sight-reading pedagogy. The computerized training will be highly promising since it can be accessible to students once it is adapted to mobile platforms, adopts the self-teaching approach in learning, and can cater for individual differences in their skill levels and pace of learning. This will be an important contribution to evidence-based teaching of sight-reading.
在教育的場境中，不論是文字、人臉、音符和圖案，學生都需要有效率地處理和提取視覺訊息。雖然視覺感知能力對許多學習領域均構成挑戰，可是視覺感知在教育的角色卻缺乏研究，所以我們對這方面所知甚少。 本研究計劃旨在了解視覺感知能力在日常閱讀中所扮演的角色，並以音樂視奏所涉及的閱讀能力作為研究重點。視奏是指彈奏第一次閱讀的樂譜，乃音樂教育裡其中一項最需要掌握的能力，惟不同的人在視奏能力上存在具大差異。因此，透過音樂視奏這個窗口，我們能夠窺探視覺感知如何影響高階閱讀以及一般的教育。 本研究將探究視覺分辨音符在預測及提升音樂視奏能力的角色。研究的第一部份將利用個人差異的研究方法建構一個理論模型，以解釋音樂視奏背後的相關基本認知能力，包括研究文獻鮮有觸及的音符閱讀能力。第二部份則測試透過實驗提升的視覺感知能力能否轉移至涉及多感官訊息整合的視奏能力。 本計劃有著以下幾項重要意義：第一，它會建構一個解釋音樂視奏能力的認知理論，並把過往所忽略的視覺感知能力加入其中；第二，它會確立視覺感知能力和音樂視奏的因果關係；第三，研究結果能夠證明視覺感知訓練對於一般的教育的角色。研究所得可應用到其他同樣需要從符碼中提取視覺訊息的閱讀領域，包括中英文閱讀。 在教學層面上，研究所得能夠提供一套經過實證測試的音符閱讀學習方法，有助音樂視奏教學。研究計劃所發展出來的一套電腦訓練採用自我導向的學習模式，並能照顧個人學習差異和進度，將來可發展成方便的應用程式。是以本研究能為以實證為本的音樂視奏教學作出重要貢獻。 |
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| Realisation of objectives: | Both objectives are completely achieved. For the 1st objective, our findings showed that the long-overlooked association between visual shape processing ability and sight-reading is important and has substantial predictor power over one's sight-reading ability. This led to a better understanding of music sight-reading. For the 2nd objective, we built a cognitive model that explains music sight-reading ability with an individual difference approach and based on basic cognitive abilities, including visual fluency for notes, general visual fluency, motor dexterity, visual-auditory association for notes, visual-motor association for numbers, working memory capacity, and executive function. Correlation and regression analyses showed that sight-reading performance can be largely explained by three abilities related to vision, including visual fluency for notes, visual-auditory association for notes, and visual-motor association for numbers. | ||||||||||||
| Summary of objectives addressed: |
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| Research Outcome | |||||||||||||
| Major findings and research outcome: | Our analyses showed that sight-reading performance can be largely explained by three abilities related to vision, including visual fluency for notes, visual-auditory association for notes, and visual-motor association for numbers (9.99%, 10.11% and 4.62% respectively). | ||||||||||||
| Potential for further development of the research and the proposed course of action: |
The findings led to a better understanding of music sight-reading that takes into account the long-overlooked association between visual shape processing ability and sight-reading, which has clear educational implications. The importance of visual shape processing ability may also apply to other domains of skilled reading requiring visual perceptual extraction of visual codes, such as word reading. | ||||||||||||
| Layman's Summary of Completion Report: | The ability to recognise and read musical notation can explain how well one can do music sight-reading. After considering one's finger dexterity, visual-motor association for numbers, working memory and executive function, we find that music sight-reading ability can be predicted by one's fluency for recognising musical notation and ability in matching the musical notation with sound. This calls for a major revision of the current cognitive model of music sight-reading to consider visual and visual association abilities. This also suggests that music educators should pay attention to these abilities in teaching more in teaching music sight-reading. | ||||||||||||
| Research Output | |||||||||||||
| Peer-reviewed journal publication(s) arising directly from this research project : (* denotes the corresponding author) |
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| Recognized international conference(s) in which paper(s) related to this research project was/were delivered : |
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| Other impact (e.g. award of patents or prizes, collaboration with other research institutions, technology transfer, etc.): |
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| SCREEN ID: SCRRM00542 |