One of the most important skills for a pianist is sight-reading, which is the ability to read an unknown music score and play it. In recent years, research has analysed eye movement during sight-reading. However, the definition of sight-reading has varied. In addition, the participants enlisted as experts in most studies have been music college students. The present study aimed to compare eye movements during sight-reading between experts, teachers at a music college and pianists, and non-experts, music college students studying to become pianists, using an eye tracker. Using easy and difficult music scores for two-handed playing, we investigated whether there were differences in the number of eye fixations, fixation duration, and eye-hand span. The definition of sight-reading in this study is to read a novel music score once without playing the piano, and then to play it while looking at the music score. The results showed that the higher the piano performance rating, the longer the eye-hand span. Areas of interest (AOIs) were defined every two rows, including a treble and bass staff in each music score. We conducted a two-factor repeated measures ANOVA (group × AOI) for each dependent variable to analyse fixation count and fixation duration per eye fixation. There was a significant interaction for the fixation count between groups and AOIs both without and with performance in the difficult score. In experts, the number of eye fixations on the difficult part of difficult score increased compared with other part both without and with performances. By contrast, there was a significant interaction for the duration per eye fixation between groups and AOIs in easy score with performance. The duration per eye fixation in experts was shorter than that in non-experts in the easy score with performance. These results suggest that experts get information through short gaze fixations.

The ability to perform an unrehearsed piece of music, or sight-read, is a skill required by music performers. In sight-reading, the performer reads and plays the music simultaneously, which requires the coordination of visual, auditory, and motor processing. While performing, they display a characteristic called eye-hand span, in which the part of the score being looked at precedes the part being played. They must recognize, decipher, and process the score in the time between reading a note and playing it. An individual’s executive function (EF) that control their cognition, emotions, and behavior may be involved in overseeing these individual movements. However, no study has investigated how EF is related to the eye-hand span and performance during sight-reading. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to clarify the relationships among EF, eye-hand span, and piano performance. Thirty-nine Japanese pianists and college students aspiring to be pianists with an average of 33.3 years of experience participated in this study. They performed sight-reading of two types of music scores with different difficulty levels while their eye movements were measured using an eye tracker to obtain their eye-hand span. The core EFs of inhibition, working memory, and shifting, were measured directly for each participant. Piano performance was evaluated by two pianists who did not participate in the study. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the results. The results showed that auditory working memory predicted eye-hand span (β = .73, p < .001 in easy score; β = .65, p < .001 in difficult score), and eye-hand span predicted performance (β = .57, p < .001 in easy score; β = .56, p < .001 in difficult score). Auditory working memory did not directly affect performance, but through eye-hand span. The eye-hand span for easy scores was significantly greater than that for difficult scores. Furthermore, in a difficult music score, the shifting ability predicted higher piano performance. These suggest that the input of notes from the eyes becomes sound in the brain and activates the auditory working memory, which is then transmitted to finger movement, resulting in piano performance. In addition, it was suggested that shifting ability is also needed to perform difficult scores.