Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Robert Scheidt
Abstract
Building upon existing research in motor learning and sensorimotor control, this thesis explores how the performance of a real-world task (playing a simple musical piece on the violin) is impacted by the spatial re-arrangement of the violin’s strings, and how performance recovers with practice (relearning). I recorded audio performances and bow kinematics as violinists with a wide range of prior skills played a familiar 2-octave G-Major arpeggio 50 times. Some subjects played all 50 arpeggios on a violin with the standard string arrangement (the control violin). Another set of subjects played the middle 30 arpeggios with a “similar” violin with an inverted string arrangement, preserving the typical nearest-neighbor relations among the strings. A third set of subjects played the middle 30 arpeggios with a “dissimilar” violin having a shuffled string arrangement that destroyed the typical nearest-neighbor relations. Results showed a transient effect on audio performance from the string re-ordering; this effect decreased across the 30 test trials consistent with re-learning. Contrary to expectations established in a related lab-based study, subjects relearned faster with the less similar violin (shuffled) compared to the more similar violin (inverted); additionally, there were after-effects on performance when subjects returned to the normal violin, but only after playing the inverted violin. By contrast, bow kinematics showed sustained disruption during the 30 test arpeggios. I observed no after-effects of exposure to either test violin on bow kinematics when subjects were again given the normal control violin. Whereas previous studies have reported facilitative effects of geometric similarity on motor learning, this investigation found the opposite effect: violin performance was disrupted more when playing the “similar” inverted violin than the “dissimilar” shuffled violin. This performance effect was not impacted by prior skill level even though some aspects of bow kinematics did vary with prior skill. Overall, this thesis contributes to the growing body of knowledge in motor learning and sensorimotor control, offering valuable insights into the factors influencing motor relearning in complex tasks like violin performance.