Music and locomotion. a study of the perception of tones with level envelopes replicating force patterns of walking

Music listening ofien produces associations to locomotion. This suggests that some patterns in music are similar to those perceived during locomotion. The present investigation tests the hypothesis that the sound level envelope of tones allude to force patterns associated with walking and dancing. Six examples of such force patterns were recorded using a force platform, and the vertical components were translated from kg to dB and used as level envelopes for tones. Sequences of four copies of each of these tones were presented with four different fixed inter-onset times. Music students were asked to characterize these sequences in three tests. In one test, the subjects were free to use any expression, and the occurrence of motion words in the responses was examined. In another test, they were asked to describe, ifpossible, the motion characteristics of the sequences, and the number of blank responses were studied. In the third test, they were asked to describe the sequences along 24 motion adjective scales, and the responses were submitted to a factor analysis. The results from the three tests showed a reasonable degree of coherence, suggesting that associations to locomotions are likely to occur under these conditions, particularly when (1) the inter-onset time is similar to the inter-step time typical of walking, and (2) when the inter-onset time agreed with that observed when the gait patterns were recorded. The latter observation suggests that the different motion patterns thus translated to sound level envelopes also may convey information on the type of motion.QC 20180914