Circling Science

Into the Hive-Mind: Shared Absorption and Cardiac Interrelations in Expert and Student String Quartets

Simon Høffding, Wenbo Yi, Eigil Lippert, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez Sanchez, Laura Bishop, Bruno Laeng, Anne Danielsen, Alexander Refsum Jensenius and Sebastian Wallot · 2023

Evidence
Experiment
Kind
Journal article
peer-reviewed
Method
Heart-rate recordings from two string quartets playing the same passage under seven conditions, some designed to disrupt their absorption
Sample
Two quartets of four musicians, one expert and one of students
Published
Music & Science, 6, 20592043231168597
Fields
Synchrony
Cautions
Small sample

Mechanisms

Studies a process a circle relies on, such as disclosure or synchrony, wherever it happens.

Two string quartets, one world-class and one of students, played the same Haydn passage under seven conditions: hearts synchronised more in playing than at rest and more in the expert quartet, whose synchrony held through most disruptions.

What it doesn’t show

Two groups of four, so expertise is mixed up with every other difference between the quartets. The authors call their support for a shared absorption tentative.

Summary based on the abstract.

Directions that build on it

  1. A shared moment

    Builds on 8 works · 4 funding routes

    When one person in a circle feels met, does the other feel it too, and do they describe the same moment?

Links

Cite

Høffding, S., Yi, W., Lippert, E., Gonzalez Sanchez, V. E., Bishop, L., Laeng, B., Danielsen, A., Jensenius, A. R., & Wallot, S. (2023). Into the Hive-Mind: Shared Absorption and Cardiac Interrelations in Expert and Student String Quartets. Music & Science, 6, 20592043231168597. https://doi.org/10.1177/20592043231168597