Impact of the Traditional Lecturing Methodology and Dalcroze's Body Rhythmic Teaching Methodology on the Teaching of Emotion in Music - A Cognitive Neuroscience approach

Although theoretical models have pointed out the key role of imitation and synchronization in the induction of musical emotions (Overy & Molnar-Szakacs, 2009), their application in teaching environments remains largely unknown. This study compared the effectiveness of a Dalcroze’s body rhythm teaching method based on imitating musical elements through body movements with that of traditional lecture teaching methods in promoting students' musical emotion processing. The study recruited a total of 103 students and 3 teachers, who were randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups in the music appreciation course: the body rhythm teaching group (n = 35), the lecture teaching group (n = 35), or the no-instruction control group (n = 33). All participants listened to the same music excerpts (two positive-emotion and two negative-emotion excerpts, all traditional Chinese instrumental pieces). During the lessons, fNIRS hyperscanning was used to simultaneously record brain activity in both students and teachers. Behavioral measures included two-dimensional (valence and arousal) indicators of music emotion processing (emotion recognition and emotion experience) and teaching quality evaluation indicators. The results showed that the body rhythm group significantly outperformed the other groups in both behavioral and neural indicators. Specifically, during the post-test music listening phase, participants in this group not only reported higher emotional arousal levels but also exhibited stronger activation levels in the bilateral FPC, which is associated with multisensory integration, and these levels were significantly higher than those of the lecture and control groups. Additionally, during the teaching process, students in the body rhythm group rated the teaching quality higher and demonstrated significantly stronger teacher-student IBS in multiple brain regions related to social interaction and emotion processing, including the lOFC responsible for interoceptive emotional processing, the lFPC related to multisensory integration, and the rSTG associated with social interaction. In contrast, the lecture teaching group only had significantly higher emotional valence scores than the control group. These findings suggest that teaching methods involving the imitation of musical elements through body movements can effectively enhance students' emotional engagement levels and promote neural activity related to social interaction and emotion processing processing.