Cortical oscillations are modified by expertise in dance and music: Evidence from live dance audience

Over the past decades, the focus of brain research has expanded from using

strictly controlled stimuli towards understanding brain functioning in complex

naturalistic contexts. Interest has increased in measuring brain processes in

natural interaction, including classrooms, theatres, concerts and museums to

understand the brain functions in the real world. Here, we examined how

watching a live dance performance with music in a real-world dance performance

setting engages the brains of the spectators. Expertise in dance or music

has been shown to modify brain functions, including when watching dance or

listening to music. Therefore, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from

an audience of dancers, musicians and novices as they watched the live dance

performance and analysed their cortical oscillations. We compared intrabrain

oscillations when participants watched the performance (with music) or listened

to the music alone without the dance. We found that dancers have stronger

fronto-central and parieto-occipital theta phase synchrony (4–8 Hz) than

novices when watching dance, likely reflecting the effects of dance experience

on motor imagery, multisensory and social interaction processes. Also, compared

with novices, dancers had stronger delta phase synchrony (0.5–4 Hz)

when listening to music, and musicians had stronger delta phase synchrony

when watching dance, suggesting expertise in music and dance enhances sensitivity

or attention to temporal regularities in movement and sound.