Effect of body experiences on the perceptual pattern and judgment in ballet: A cases study in classic dance

Abstract

This cases study addressed the inuence of previous body (visual, motor, and teaching) experiences in classic dance on visual search strategies and perceptual judgments. Three participants of classic dance, with different visual, motor, and teaching experiences (i.e., expert-, intermediate-, and novel- participant) perceived nine video-projected sequences of ballet in a laboratory setting. The visual behaviour was collected with an eye tracking system (SMI EYE TRACKING GLASSES 2 WIRELESS). After each trial, the participants made a judgment about the quality of dancer´s performance. The measure of the scores was carried out with the Score Sheet for Performance Competence Evaluation in dance, and after that compared with the scores of an expert teacher of dance. The results revealed a different perceptual pattern between participants, with differences in the number and time of fixations for the most of body locations. The expert participant showed a similar perceptual judgment to the teacher of dance because they did not reported dierences in the scores
marked to the dancer´s performance. However, dierent scores were found between expert participant vs intermediate and novel participants. There were no dierences between the intermediate and novel participants. The previous body experiences in classic dance constrained the participants´ visual behaviour. Specifically, the teaching experiences seem to sum an added value to the expert participant´ judgment because it was the most similar to the expert teacher´s one.