We all know there’s something special about a live concert. Whether it’s a famous singer or a guitarist at your favourite local restaurant, seeing a musician performing right in front of us enhances our experience of the music compared to hearing it over the radio.
In a recent study, researchers from our UTSC TEMPO Lab teamed up with McMaster’s LIVELab to learn how babies experience an audiovisual recording of a concert compared to the real thing. A group of babies watched a new musical show called “The Music Box” composed by Toronto artist Bryna Berezowska, either live or projected to the “big screen”. We recorded the baby’s reactions, as well as their physiological responses, like heart rate.
The results of the study will help us better understand the special role of live performance in our emotional and physiological reactions to music.
See our feature on a CHCH News here.