THE EFFECTS OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY MODELS ON THE LEARNING OF A RHYTHMICAL SYNCHRONIZATION DANCE SKILL

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of visual and auditory concurrent models on the acquisition of a rhythmical synchron ization task. Subjects attempted to synchronize a series of dance step s to the beat of two auditory rhythms. Subjects performed five trial b locks in one of four practice conditions: (a) audio-visual (auditory r hythms combined with a visual model), (b) audio-auditory (auditory rhy thms combined with an auditory model), (c) auditory only (auditory rhy thms with no model), and (d) visual only (no auditory rhythms but expo sure to a visual model). Rhythmical timing and synchronization accurac y served as the dependent variables. Results revealed no practice cond ition learning differences for rhythmical timing. For synchronization accuracy, the audio-auditory group produced significantly lower error scores at acquisition, but no differences were found at retention. App arently, the availability of models created an information dependency that resulted in a decrease of performance and, consequently, no group differences in retention.