Dance with or without music: individual interpretations and across-subject synchronization

Dance is a fluid mixture of body movements and sound. To understand the effect of music on dance perception, we analysed brain activity of 11 naïve spectators’ using functional MRI while they passively watched a 6-min video of a woman performing a narrative gestural Indian dance piece once with music, once without music and once while they listened to the music only.

We tested inter-subject correlation (Hasson et al., 2010) within and across conditions and performed GLM-based contrast and conjunction analyses. We found complementary evidence for uni- and multisensory processing in expected areas: observers’ brain responses were significantly correlated for significantly enhanced areas in the GLM analyses. Of particular interest was the superior temporal gyrus, previously reported as multisensory integration area in gestural perception (Callan et al., 2004; Stevenson & James, 2009). Further, music and dance together extended synchronisation in primary visual and auditory areas more than on their own. While the responses in these cortices partly correlated across multi- and unisensory stimulation, subjects’ brain responses did not correlate across modalities.

Our data suggest that music and movement together enhance synchronicity across subjects and show that scanning subjects during long segments can reveal functionally relevant areas in audiovisual processing.