Thesis Chapters by Shen Li
When responding to music, humans move their bodies with various motional patterns varying in spee... more When responding to music, humans move their bodies with various motional patterns varying in speed, spatial dimensions and continuity. This cross-modal association has been widely examined by motion-induction studies; however, it is less studied in a music-production context. This research examined the transformation from the visualized motion patterns into musical characteristics of performed sounds in a creative production environment. Pianists were required to play expressively on either a single tone or a sequence of musical tones several times after watching different video stimuli. The results revealed that perceived speed in visual stimuli had an impact on performance tempo; walking distance (increasing/decreasing) from the camera influenced performance volume; and movement continuity affected performance articulation. This is consistent with previous findings on music-motion analogies. This research also revealed several potential correspondence patterns: Visualized motional height had an impact on musical articulation (higher/staccato, lower/legato), and motional speed may influence musical loudness (faster/louder, slower/softer). This research implied that expressive performance intention of pianists is associated with specific movement patterns.
Conference Presentations by Shen Li
Background:
Studies on the audio-visual presentation of musical performance have investigated its... more Background:
Studies on the audio-visual presentation of musical performance have investigated its impact on perceived expressiveness (Davidson, 2005) and musical appreciation/evaluation (Platz & Kopiez, 2012). Little is known about whether a precise timbral intention by a pianist can be communicated to listeners. An interview study (Li & Timmers, 2017) on the conceptualization of piano timbre revealed pianists’ extensive utilization of timbral intentions in piano performance; the findings also suggested that the timbre concept of a pianist is enriched by embodied experience such as bodily preparations, indicating the relevance of visual cues.
Aims:
A listening experiment was conducted to examine the accuracy of communication of timbral intentions to listeners and its dependence on visual and aural component of musical performance.
Musical pitch has been shown to be strongly associated with vertical locations in human mental re... more Musical pitch has been shown to be strongly associated with vertical locations in human mental representation, while horizontal mappings of pitch were shown to be complex. This paper investigated instrumental training effects on the spatial location of sounds. It was found that, after short performance on their instrument, pianists tend to perceive higher pitch as coming from the right-hand side and lower pitch from the left-hand side, while this was not found in flautists. This study contributes to our understanding of embodied cognition of internal representations of musical pitch by the evidence that spatial representations are affected by instrumental knowledge activated through performance.
Papers by Shen Li
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Online mental health service (OMHS) platforms have contributed significantly to the public’s ment... more Online mental health service (OMHS) platforms have contributed significantly to the public’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. However, it remains unclear why the public used OMHS platforms for psychological help-seeking (PHS) behavior and how PHS behavior varied across different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the ecological PHS behavior data from two OMHS platforms, we extracted population, psychological problems, and influential factors of PHS behavior by text mining and time series analysis methods. Seven top-ranked psychological problems (i.e., depression and anxiety, lack of interest, suicidal tendencies, social phobia, feelings of being worried and afraid, suffering, anger) and seven influential factors (i.e., interpersonal relationships, love, family, work, psychotherapy, personal characteristics, marriage) were found. The online PHS behaviors related to different psychological problems and influential factors remained a growing trend before 2020...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
The perceptual experiment reported in this article explored whether the communication of five pai... more The perceptual experiment reported in this article explored whether the communication of five pairs of timbral intentions (bright/dark, heavy/light, round/sharp, tense/relaxed, and dry/velvety) between pianists and listeners is reliable and the extent to which performers' gestures provide visual cues that influence the perceived timbre. Three pianists played three musical excerpts with 10 different timbral intentions (3 × 10 = 30 music stimuli) and 21 piano students were asked to rate perceived timbral qualities on both unipolar Likert scales and non-verbal sensory scales (shape, size, and brightness) under three modes (vision-alone, audio-alone, and audiovisual). The results revealed that nine of the timbral intentions were reliably communicated between the pianists and the listeners, except for the dark timbre. The communication of tense and relaxed timbres was improved by the visual conditions regardless of who is performing; for the rest, we found the individuality in each pianist's preference for using visual cues. The results also revealed a strong cross-modal association between timbre and shape. This study implies that the communication of piano timbre is not based on acoustic cues alone but relates to a shared understanding of sensorimotor experiences between the performers and the listeners.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
The ability to play the piano with a variety of timbres requires a performer to have advanced pia... more The ability to play the piano with a variety of timbres requires a performer to have advanced pianistic skills. Little is known about how these skills are acquired and developed in piano lessons and what the role is of elements such as concepts, technique, sonic outcomes, and bodily movements. To investigate the teaching and learning of piano timbre, the lessons of three pairs of university-level teachers and students (two teachers and three students) were observed, during which they behaved as usual in the first two lessons and were asked to use a dialogic teaching approach in the third lesson. Verbal communications of teachers and students about timbre were coded and analyzed, aiming to gain insight into the teaching/learning process of piano timbre and the roles of embodiment and teacher-student interaction in the context of higher music education. The results suggest that piano timbre is not learned through imitation or as "fixed" and objective knowledge, but as a co-constructed conception between the teachers and the students. The meaning of timbre goals in piano lessons is enacted through "in-the-moment" bodily experience and embodied through performance actions. This study contributes to the understanding of piano timbre as a multifaceted phenomenon and illustrates the teacher's role in developing the student's mind-body integration involved in tone production.
Journal of New Music Research, 2020
Whether piano touch can influence piano timbre or not is a highly contested topic between acousti... more Whether piano touch can influence piano timbre or not is a highly contested topic between acousticians and musicians. To gain insight into the ways in which pianists understand and use timbre, eight piano students were interviewed about their conceptualisation of timbre and ways of producing different timbres on the piano. Results indicate that pianists interpret timbre holistically as the overall sonic outcome and use embodied conceptualisations to produce timbre: expected/intended timbral effects are associated with corporeal experiences and the body and mind are strongly coupled in perception and production.
Every author at Routledge (including all co-authors) gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with friends and colleagues as soon as their article is published. Your eprint link is now ready to use and is:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GWAQKAMIKMPBYVQ4M4YV/full?target=10.1080/09298215.2020.1826532
Representation of pitch in horizontal space and its relationship to musical and instrumental expe... more Representation of pitch in horizontal space and its relationship to musical and instrumental experience was examined in three behavioral experiments. Each experiment investigated the influence of a task-irrelevant dimension (pitch or location) on the perception of a task-relevant dimension (location or pitch, respectively). Sine tones with nine different pitches were presented from nine locations, and participants estimated the pitch or location of the stimuli. Experiment 1 showed an influence of the (task irrelevant) pitch of presented stimuli on the perceived location of the stimuli in musically experienced participants only. This influence increased with the degree of musical training of participants. No influence was found of presented location on the perception of pitch. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the influence of instrumental expertise comparing the responses of a group of flutists with a group of pianists. An interaction with instrumental expertise was found only in Experiment 3, where participants played shortly on their respective instruments before doing the perceptual judgments. The experiments indicate that musical training in general influence the pitch-location association, and pianistic experience in particular.
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Thesis Chapters by Shen Li
Conference Presentations by Shen Li
Studies on the audio-visual presentation of musical performance have investigated its impact on perceived expressiveness (Davidson, 2005) and musical appreciation/evaluation (Platz & Kopiez, 2012). Little is known about whether a precise timbral intention by a pianist can be communicated to listeners. An interview study (Li & Timmers, 2017) on the conceptualization of piano timbre revealed pianists’ extensive utilization of timbral intentions in piano performance; the findings also suggested that the timbre concept of a pianist is enriched by embodied experience such as bodily preparations, indicating the relevance of visual cues.
Aims:
A listening experiment was conducted to examine the accuracy of communication of timbral intentions to listeners and its dependence on visual and aural component of musical performance.
Papers by Shen Li
Every author at Routledge (including all co-authors) gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with friends and colleagues as soon as their article is published. Your eprint link is now ready to use and is:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GWAQKAMIKMPBYVQ4M4YV/full?target=10.1080/09298215.2020.1826532
Studies on the audio-visual presentation of musical performance have investigated its impact on perceived expressiveness (Davidson, 2005) and musical appreciation/evaluation (Platz & Kopiez, 2012). Little is known about whether a precise timbral intention by a pianist can be communicated to listeners. An interview study (Li & Timmers, 2017) on the conceptualization of piano timbre revealed pianists’ extensive utilization of timbral intentions in piano performance; the findings also suggested that the timbre concept of a pianist is enriched by embodied experience such as bodily preparations, indicating the relevance of visual cues.
Aims:
A listening experiment was conducted to examine the accuracy of communication of timbral intentions to listeners and its dependence on visual and aural component of musical performance.
Every author at Routledge (including all co-authors) gets 50 free online copies of their article to share with friends and colleagues as soon as their article is published. Your eprint link is now ready to use and is:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GWAQKAMIKMPBYVQ4M4YV/full?target=10.1080/09298215.2020.1826532