Among our most powerful experiences are those we share with others. Researchers have increasingly sought to investigate responses to socially potent stimuli, such as music, in contexts that are more naturalistic than a traditional psychology lab. Here, we investigated behavioral and physiological responses to either a live concert or a perceptually matched recorded playback on a naïve audience: infants. Two audiences of 6- to 14-month-old infants (N = ∼30 each, total N = 61) watched a musical performance live in a specialized research facility/concert hall (McMaster University LIVELab). Two additional 6- to 14-month-old infant audiences (N = ∼30 each, total N = 59) watched a recorded playback of the same performance in the same auditorium. A third group (same age range, N = 27) watched the recorded playback individually on their family’s device at home. Infants were more engaged in the live performance than the recorded playback, indicated by more overall attention and more sustained attention, and physiological synchrony. Infants at home visually attended at levels comparable to infants in the live performance but their attention was sustained for shorter bouts. Findings suggest that performer–audience interactions and social context play an important role in facilitating attention and coordinating emotional responses to musical performances early in life.

Music is increasingly recognized as having a social role, insofar as it is linked to emotional regulation and to early interactions in infancy and the preschool years. The goal of this meta-analysis was to examine the impact of participating in an early childhood music programme on indices of socioemotional development in children under 6 years of age. The overall result showed a moderate effect size (N = 681, k = 11, d = 0.57, p < 0.001). Moderation analyses revealed that the type of assessment (observational measure, reported measure or other types of assessment) significantly influenced effect size (Q′ = 25.26, p < 0.001). No other moderation analysis was significant. Although these findings are promising, suggesting that participation in an early childhood music programme contribute to children’s socioemotional development, more rigorous studies are needed to assess the impact of participating in a music programme on socioemotional development.

Among our most powerful experiences are those we share with others. Researchers have increasingly sought to investigate responses to socially potent stimuli, such as music, in contexts that are more naturalistic than a traditional psychology lab. Here, we investigated behavioral and physiological responses to either a live concert or a perceptually-matched recorded playback on a naïve audience: infants. Two audiences of 6- to 14-month-old infants (N = ~30 each, total N = 61) watched a musical performance live in a specialized research facility/concert hall (livelab.mcmaster.ca). Two additional infant audiences (N = ~30 each, total N = 59) watched a recorded playback of the same performance in the same auditorium. A third group (N = 27) watched the recorded playback individually on their family’s device at home. In the two audience conditions, infants were more engaged in the live performance than the recorded playback, indicated by more overall attention and more sustained attention, and physiological synchrony. Infants at home watched at levels comparable to infants in the live performance but their attention was sustained for shorter bouts. Findings suggest that performer-audience interactions and social context play an important role in facilitating attention and coordinating emotional responses to musical performances early in life.

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