How Live Performance Moves the Human Heart

We investigated how the audience member’s physiological reactions differ as a function of listening context (i.e., live versus recorded music contexts). Thirty-seven audience members were assigned to one of seven pianists’ performances and listened to his/her live performances of six pieces (fast and slow pieces by Bach, Schumann, and Debussy). Approximately 10 weeks after the live performance, each of the audience members returned to the same room and listened to the recorded performances of the same pianists’ via speakers. We recorded the audience members’ electrocardiograms in listening to the performances in both conditions, and analyzed their heart rates and the spectral features of the heart-rate variability (i.e., HF/TF, LF/HF). Results showed that the audience’s heart rate was higher for the faster than the slower piece only in the live condition. As compared with the recorded condition, the audience’s sympathovagal balance (LF/HF) was less while their vagal nervous system (HF/TF) was activated more in the live condition, which appears to suggest that sharing the ongoing musical moments with the pianist reduces the audience’s physiological stress. The results are discussed in terms of the audience’s superior attention and temporal entrainment to live performance.

本研究探究了听众的生理反应如何随聆听情境（即现场音乐与录音音乐情境）的不同而产生差异。本研究招募37名听众，将其分配至七位钢琴家的其中一场演奏现场，聆听该钢琴家演奏的六首作品（涵盖巴赫、舒曼与德彪西的快板与慢板曲目）。在现场演奏结束约10周后，所有听众返回同一房间，通过扬声器聆听同一位钢琴家的对应录音演奏版本。本研究记录了两类聆听情境下听众的心电图（electrocardiogram）信号，并分析了其心率与心率变异性的频谱特征（即HF/TF、LF/HF）。研究结果显示，仅在现场聆听情境下，听众聆听快板曲目时的心率显著高于慢板曲目。与录音聆听情境相比，现场情境下听众的交感迷走平衡值（LF/HF）更低，而迷走神经系统活跃度（HF/TF）更高，这一结果表明，与钢琴家共享当下的音乐时刻可降低听众的生理应激水平。本研究最后从听众对现场演奏更强的注意力投入与时间同步性角度对上述结果展开了讨论。