Ensemble musicians exchange auditory and visual signals that can facilitate interpersonal synchronization. Musical expertise improves how precisely auditory and visual signals are perceptually integrated and increases sensitivity to asynchrony between them. Whether expertise improves sensitivity to audiovisual asynchrony in all instrumental contexts or only in those using sound-producing gestures that are within an observer’s own motor repertoire is unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that musicians are more sensitive to audiovisual asynchrony in performances featuring their own instrument than in performances featuring other instruments. Short clips were extracted from audio-video recordings of clarinet, piano, and violin performances and presented to highly-skilled clarinetists, pianists, and violinists. Clips either maintained the audiovisual synchrony present in the original recording or were modified so that the video led or lagged behind the audio. Participants indicated whether the audio and video channels in each clip were synchronized. The range of asynchronies most often endorsed as synchronized was assessed as a measure of participants’ sensitivities to audiovisual asynchrony. A positive relationship was observed between musical training and sensitivity, with data pooled across stimuli. While participants across expertise groups detected asynchronies most readily in piano stimuli and least readily in violin stimuli, pianists showed significantly better performance for piano stimuli than for either clarinet or violin. These findings suggest that, to an extent, the effects of expertise on audiovisual integration can be instrument-specific; however, the nature of the sound-producing gestures that are observed has a substantial effect on how readily asynchrony is detected as well.

This book is part of an interdisciplinary research on artistic development from a cultural institutions studies perspective. The main questions answered are what artistic development is perceived to be and if and how it is practiced by opera organizations with particular emphasis to Young Artist’s Programmes. The book also identifies associated issues, stresses the importance of artistic development and offers reasons to support initiatives aimed at young professional artists. Among the issues discussed are taste, creative process, performance and skills, singer’s careers and the changing job description and role of artists. The book’s contribution to scientific knowledge is a comprehensive discussion on artistic development from a holistic point of view, with insights from areas such as aesthetics, musicology, performance studies, cultural studies, human resource management, cultural economics and cultural policy and management.The main findings can have a practical use in various areas such as University curricula, training and development programmes, opera houses’ policy and in the artistic profession in general.