One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.

Previous research on interpersonal synchrony has mainly investigated small groups in isolated laboratory settings, which may not fully reflect the complex and dynamic interactions of real-life social situations. The present study expands on this by examining group synchrony across a large number of...

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Main Authors: Melissa Ellamil, Joshua Berson, Jen Wong, Louis Buckley, Daniel S Margulies
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072606?pdf=render
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spelling doaj-a82dde9d75b74525901248840a067ec42020-11-25T01:42:24ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032016-01-011110e016478310.1371/journal.pone.0164783One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.Melissa EllamilJoshua BersonJen WongLouis BuckleyDaniel S MarguliesPrevious research on interpersonal synchrony has mainly investigated small groups in isolated laboratory settings, which may not fully reflect the complex and dynamic interactions of real-life social situations. The present study expands on this by examining group synchrony across a large number of individuals in a naturalistic environment. Smartphone acceleration measures were recorded from participants during a music set in a dance club and assessed to identify how group movement synchrony covaried with various features of the music. In an evaluation of different preprocessing and analysis methods, giving more weight to front-back movement provided the most sensitive and reliable measure of group synchrony. During the club music set, group synchrony of torso movement was most strongly associated with pulsations that approximate walking rhythm (100-150 beats per minute). Songs with higher real-world play counts were also correlated with greater group synchrony. Group synchrony thus appears to be constrained by familiarity of the movement (walking action and rhythm) and of the music (song popularity). These findings from a real-world, large-scale social and musical setting can guide the development of methods for capturing and examining collective experiences in the laboratory and for effectively linking them to synchrony across people in daily life.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072606?pdf=render
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Melissa Ellamil
Joshua Berson
Jen Wong
Louis Buckley
Daniel S Margulies
spellingShingle Melissa Ellamil
Joshua Berson
Jen Wong
Louis Buckley
Daniel S Margulies
One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Melissa Ellamil
Joshua Berson
Jen Wong
Louis Buckley
Daniel S Margulies
author_sort Melissa Ellamil
title One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
title_short One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
title_full One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
title_fullStr One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
title_full_unstemmed One in the Dance: Musical Correlates of Group Synchrony in a Real-World Club Environment.
title_sort one in the dance: musical correlates of group synchrony in a real-world club environment.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2016-01-01
description Previous research on interpersonal synchrony has mainly investigated small groups in isolated laboratory settings, which may not fully reflect the complex and dynamic interactions of real-life social situations. The present study expands on this by examining group synchrony across a large number of individuals in a naturalistic environment. Smartphone acceleration measures were recorded from participants during a music set in a dance club and assessed to identify how group movement synchrony covaried with various features of the music. In an evaluation of different preprocessing and analysis methods, giving more weight to front-back movement provided the most sensitive and reliable measure of group synchrony. During the club music set, group synchrony of torso movement was most strongly associated with pulsations that approximate walking rhythm (100-150 beats per minute). Songs with higher real-world play counts were also correlated with greater group synchrony. Group synchrony thus appears to be constrained by familiarity of the movement (walking action and rhythm) and of the music (song popularity). These findings from a real-world, large-scale social and musical setting can guide the development of methods for capturing and examining collective experiences in the laboratory and for effectively linking them to synchrony across people in daily life.
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072606?pdf=render
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