Dancing to “groovy” music enhances the experience of flo · Dancing to “groovy” music...

Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923

ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCESSpecial Issue: The Neurosciences and Music VIORIGINAL ARTICLE

Dancing to “groovy” music enhances the experienceof flow

Nicolo F. Bernardi,1,2 Antoine Bellemare-Pepin,1 and Isabelle Peretz1,3,4

1Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 2Department of Psychology, McGillUniversity, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 3Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.4Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Address for correspondence: Nicolo F. Bernardi, Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal H9X1A5, QC, Canada. [email protected]

We investigated whether dancing influences the emotional response to music, compared to when music is listened to inthe absence of movement. Forty participants without previous dance training listened to “groovy” and “nongroovy”music excerpts while either dancing or refraining from movement. Participants were also tested while imitating theirown dance movements, but in the absence of music as a control condition. Emotion ratings and ratings of flow werecollected following each condition. Dance movements were recorded using motion capture. We found that the stateof flow was increased specifically during spontaneous dance to groovy excerpts, compared with both still listeningand motor imitation. Emotions in the realms of vitality (such as joy and power) and sublimity (such as wonder andnostalgia) were evoked by music in general, whether participants moved or not. Significant correlations were foundbetween the emotional and flow responses to music and whole-body acceleration profiles. Thus, the results highlighta distinct state of flow when dancing, which may be of use to promote well-being and to address certain clinicalconditions.

Keywords: dance; music; emotions; movement; flow; kinematics

Introduction

Music moves us: literally, as when we feel com-pelled to rock, swing, and bounce in response torhythms and melodies,1 and emotionally, as whenmusic evokes in us a variety of experiences spanningexcited delight, triumphant confidence, tender nos-talgia, and more (see Ref. 2 for a review). The way wemove to music is influenced by a myriad of factors,including the rhythmic structure of the music,3,4

the emotional state of the dancer,5 the emotionsperceived in the music,6 and the personality of thedancer.7,8

Surprisingly, little is known about how themotoric and emotional components interact whenlistening to music. It is known that the performer’sgestures influence the emotional experience of theaudience,9,10 but little attention has been paid tohow the movements made by the listeners influencetheir own emotional experiences.

A recent study showed that the degree of pleasure(i.e., emotional valence) experienced while listening

to groovy music was significantly higher when lis-tening was accompanied by free dance moves, com-pared with listening without movements or makingdance movements without music.11 Moreover, thedegree of emotional arousal was found to depend onthe motoric activity per se, regardless of the presenceor absence of music, and on the presence of music,regardless of the presence or absence of movements.The aim of this study is to extend this investiga-tion to other relevant dimensions of the emotionalexperience, beyond valence and arousal.

Here, we rated experienced emotions using acategory-based musical emotions scale, as opposedto the domain-general, dimension-based scale pre-viously used. The rationale for this is that emotionlabels, such as joy, power, and sadness, may offera more precise and nuanced account of the qualityof the emotional experience compared with emo-tional dimensions such as valence and arousal.12,13

Second, we aimed to investigate whether dancemay positively impact the experience of flow, overand beyond music listening in the absence of

doi: 10.1111/nyas.13644

415Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1423 (2018) 415–426 C© 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

Dance enhances the experience of flow Bernardi et al.

movements. Flow refers to a strongly reward-ing experience of deep absorption and energized,focused attention.14 The intentional and activenature of dance, compared with the relatively staticexperience of listening to music, could make theformer more permeable to flow states. In fact, danc-ing may offer greater opportunity for experiencinglandmark flow experiences, such as effortless actionexecution, sense of control, and a challenging motortask.14 Finally, we sought to identify motor corre-lates of the emotional and flow experiences. To thisend, we recorded the movements of participantsduring dance and searched for reliable correlationsbetween motor patterns and subjective experiences.

Methods

ParticipantsWe tested 40 participants (19 females) withoutmotor medical conditions. Participants wererecruited from the local universities through onlinemessage boards, and were for the most part uni-versity students (age, M ± SD: 26.2 ± 4.9; weight:64.5 ± 11.1 kg; height: 170.1 ± 10.1 cm). None ofthe participants reported dancing professionally,although 11 of them reported dancing as amateurs(average hours dancing/week: 0.7 ± 1.7). Allparticipants had less than 3 years of formal dancetraining (average years of training: 0.2 ± 0.5). Twoparticipants reported playing a musical instrumentprofessionally, and 14 reported playing as amateurs(average hours playing/week: 1.5 ± 2.6; averageyears of training: 3.3 ± 4.5). This study wascarried out in accordance with the ethics guidelinesprovided by the Human Research Ethics Committeeof Univesite de Montreal (Certification number:CERAS-206-17-002-D) with written informedconsent from all subjects, in accordance with theDeclaration of Helsinki.

Design and taskFigure 1A shows the design of the experiment, andFigure 1B depicts an example of the experimentalsequence. Participants were tested in a single ses-sion lasting 2.5 h as follows: (1) standing/restingbaseline with the explicit request of avoiding move-ments (no music and no movements), for 4 minand 15 s, which is the same duration as the musicexcerpts; (2) dancing to a groovy excerpt (see below)(both music and movements present); (3) listeningto a nongroovy excerpt while standing and refrain-

ing from movements (music present but no move-ments); (4) copying the movement produced during(2) (movements present but no music); (5) dancingto a nongroovy excerpt; (6) listening to a groovyexcerpt while standing and refraining from move-ments; and (7) copying the movement producedduring (5). The order of the conditions 2–7 waspseudo-randomized across participants.

Participants listened to prerecorded instructionsbefore each condition. The script for the recordedinstructions is provided as Appendix 1 (onlineonly). These recorded instructions included the rel-evant music excerpt as a background, so that partic-ipants could prepare themselves for the mood andstyle of the music to come. For the dancing con-dition, participants were instructed to listen to themusic, to concentrate on their emotional state, andto let their body spontaneously move, as inspired bytheir feelings. Participants were allowed to move theway they wanted within an area delimited by tape onthe floor (area size: 2.8 m × 3.3 m). For the listeningstill condition, participants were instructed to listento the music, concentrate on their emotional state,and remain standing, relaxed, and perfectly still. Wereminded participants to keep their body relaxedwithout creating muscle tension. The imitation con-dition was designed with the goal of matching themovements generated during the dance condition.Participants were shown on a projection screen (size:1.2 m × 1.2 m) the dot-display motion-capturerecording of their own dance. Participants wereinstructed to imitate the movements of the animatedfigure. Participants were not told that they would bewatching their own performance; many reportedthat they recognized themselves and informallyreported feelings of amusement about watching andcopying their own performance. The rationale forthe design of the copy condition was to eliminate thedance component by (1) replacing the music witha nonmusical auditory stimulation (a low-passedwhite noise sound) and (2) replacing the dance withthe imitation of somebody else’s movements.

The music excerpts, as well as the white noise,were edited so that each lasted exactly 4 minutesand 15 seconds. During testing for all conditions,participants were left alone in the testing room, andthe lights in the room were dimmed. This was doneto help participants feel at ease and to encouragetheir freedom of expression, particularly duringthe dancing. After the end of the music excerpt,

416 Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1423 (2018) 415–426 C© 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

Bernardi et al. Dance enhances the experience of flow

Figure 1. Experimental design. (A) Experimental tasks. (B) Example of sequence for the experimental tasks. (C) Details of themusic excerpts.

participants provided ratings on their emotionalexperience (see green arrows in Fig. 1B). The dura-tion of the emotion ratings following each conditionwas approximately 3 minutes. The experimentalsession was concluded by an informal debrief aboutthe participant’s experience. Anecdotal reports ofthese experiences suggest that participants enjoyedthe experimental session, with “it was fun” beingthe most frequently reported experience and norecord of participants complaining about excessivefatigue or significant emotional discomfort.

The 40 participants were randomly assigned totwo groups of 20 participants each. Each participantdanced to one groovy and one nongroovy excerptand listened while remaining still to one differentgroovy and one nongroovy excerpt. The two groupswere tested with different music excerpts. Partici-pants in group A were tested with familiar groovy

excerpts and unfamiliar nongroovy excerpts. Sym-metrically, participants in group B were tested withunfamiliar groovy excerpts and familiar nongroovyexcerpts (Fig. 1C).

Music excerptsEight music excerpts were selected for the purposeof this study, derived from the combinationof high/low groove × high/low familiarity ×with/without lyrics. Particularly relevant for thecurrent investigation, the dimension of grooveexpresses the degree to which a certain piece ofmusic urges the listener to generate movements.1,15

In this study, we aimed to test the potentialeffect of groove in mediating emotional responsesduring dance by including both high-groove andlow-groove music excerpts. We controlled for twopotential confounds—familiarity and lyrics—as



previous studies showed that both familiarity andthe presence of lyrics can play a role in making thelisteners emotionally engaged with music.16,17 First,we selected two highly familiar excerpts that hadbeen previously validated in the study by Janataet al.1 as having a very high degree of groove, onewith and one without lyrics. Next, we sought toidentify additional music excerpts with high versuslow degrees of groove. The further six excerpts wereselected from an initial pool of 24 excerpts, half withand half without lyrics. We ran a pilot online surveywith 40 participants, which rated each excerpt forgroove and familiarity on 1–7 Likert scales. Wechose the six excerpts that, together with the twopreliminarily selected from Janata et al.,1 were mostdifferent in terms of groove (maximum differencebetween high and low groove), and most different interms of familiarity (maximum difference betweenhigh versus low familiarity). Further details of themusic selection process are reported in Ref. 11.

MeasuresThe primary outcome measure was the emo-tional rating following each condition. Emotionalresponses were collected by means of scores pro-vided by the participants on computerized Likertscales. For the emotional assessment, we utilizedthe Geneva Emotional Music Scales (GEMS)(Table 1).13 The experience of flow was quanti-fied by means of the Core Flow Questionnaire(Table 2).18 To reduce the number of dependentvariables, the 48 items from the English version ofthe GEMS questionnaire were first combined toobtain the nine standard factors (wonder, transcen-dence, power, tenderness, nostalgia, peacefulness,joyful activation, sadness, and tension) and thenfurther collapsed in the three second-order factors,termed by Zentner and collaborators “sublimity”(wonder + transcendence + tenderness + nos-talgia + peacefulness), “vitality” (power + joyfulactivation), and “unease” (tension + sadness).13

The combination of items in factors was obtainedby summing the ratings for all the items withina given factor. Similarly, the second-order factorswere created by summing the ratings for all thefirst-order factors within a given second-orderfactor. The three-factor solution was used for statis-tical analyses, whereas the nine-factor solution wasused for a qualitative assessment of the results. The10 items from the Core Flow Questionnaire were

Table 1. Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS-48)

Items

First-order

factors

Second-order

factors

Happy Wonder Sublimity

Amazed

Dazzled

Allured

Moved

Filled with wonder

Admiring

In awe

Inspired Transcendence

Feeling of transcendence

Feeling of spirituality

Thrills

Fascinated

Overwhelmed

In love Tenderness

Affectionate

Sensual

Tender

Mellowed (softened-up)

Sentimental Nostalgia

Dreamy

Nostalgic

Melancholic

Calm Peacefulness

Relaxed

Serene

Soothed

Meditative

Energetic Power Vitality

Triumphant

Fiery

Strong

Heroic

Stimulated Joyful

activation

Joyful

Animated

Amused

Feel like dancing

Bouncy

Agitated Tension Unease

Nervous

Tense

Impatient

Irritated

Sad Sadness

Sorrowful

Tearful

Blue



Table 2. Core Flow Scale Questionnaire

Items

1. I am “totally involved.”

2. It feels like “everything clicks.”

3. I am “tuned in” to what I am doing.

4. I am “in the zone.”

5. I feel “in control.”

6. I am “switched on.”

7. It feels like I am “in the flow” of things.

8. It feels like “nothing else matters.”

9. I am “in the groove.”

10. I am “totally focused: on what I am doing.”

summed into a single flow score. Therefore, fourrating scores in total were submitted to statisticalanalysis (sublimity, vitality, unease, and flow).

The core flow scale is a measure that focusesmostly on the phenomenological experience andwas developed from qualitative studies19–21focusedon the way people experience and describe flow.The core flow scale was preferred to other ques-tionnaires for the following three reasons. First, ameasure of flow that mostly focuses on aspects ofphenomenological experience seemed appropriateto our design, in which participants were invited tobring awareness to their inner emotional states. Infact, Martin and Jackson18 recommend the use ofthe core flow scale when attempting to describe thesubjective aspect of optimal experience. Second, thecore flow scale has developed in the context of sport,a category of activity that presents several similari-ties to dance. Third, other published scales (such asthe Short Flow Scale18) present items that did notmatch the premises of our study. For example, theitem “I feel I am competent enough to meet the highdemands of the situation” from the Short Flow Scalegoes against the fact that participants in our studywere invited to express themselves freely, withoutany expectations about performance.

Participants’ movements were recorded bymeans of optical infrared motion capture (Qualysissystem) at a frame rate of 100 Hz. We recordedthe three-dimensional position of 28 reflectivemarkers attached to each participant, following themarker setup used in previous dance experiments(described in detail in Ref. 6). The details of themotion-capture analyses are reported elsewhere.11

Briefly, the dimensionality of the data was reducedby employing principal component analysis (PCA),as implemented in Matlab (version 2015b). The

input to the PCA was a matrix containing 80 rows,corresponding to the scores for each participantin the two dance conditions (40 participants × 2conditions), and 71 columns, corresponding to thevelocity, acceleration, jerk, kinetic energy, boundingrectangle, and cumulative distance of each marker.The data were centered and then factorized usingthe singular value decomposition algorithm. Theanalysis was restricted to the first three principalcomponents (PCs), which together explained 96.4%of the total variance. PC1 explained 86% of thevariance and had high positive loadings for featuresrelated to jerky and accelerated movements of thefeet, ankles, knees, hands, wrists, and elbows, as wellas positive loadings for the cumulative distance ofthe same body parts. PC1 was therefore interpretedto reflect accelerated and widespread whole-bodymovements involving a wide exploration of thespace in the room (a table with the detailed loadingsfor each PC is provided as Appendix 2, onlineonly). PC2 explained a further 6.2% of the variance,reflecting a dance pattern predominantly involvingaccelerated and expansive movements of the hands,with lower degree of involvement of the lower part ofthe body. PC3 explained a further 4.2% of the vari-ance, and reflected a pattern of whole-body dancing“on the spot” characterized by complex movementsof the upper body but minimal exploration of thespace. In addition to the three PCs described above,we computed a measure of overall movement com-plexity and a measure of overall movement fluidity,as implemented in the Motion Capture Toolbox.22

The measure of movement complexity is based onthe proportion of variance explained by the first fivePCs of a PCA run on the whole-body positional data(all joints) from an individual’s motion-capturerecordings. A low proportion of explained varianceimplies that the underlying movement is complex,as a high number of PCs are needed to explainthe movement sufficiently (see Ref. 6 for furtherdetails). Overall movement fluidity was computedas the ratio of velocity to acceleration from all theavailable joints. The combination of high velocityand low acceleration reflects fluid movement,whereas the combination of low velocity and highacceleration reflects nonfluid movement.

StatisticsAll the statistical analyses were run using SPSS (ver-sion 23). A bivariate two-way repeated-measures



Figure 2. Emotion ratings. The figure shows the emotion ratings for the four emotional dimensions examined, across the fourexperimental conditions (baseline, dance, copy, and still). Ratings for the groovy excerpts are shown with red markers, and ratingsfor the nongroovy excerpts are shown with blue markers. Error bars represent means ± standard error.

analysis of variance (ANOVA) was run to assessthe difference in the emotional response among thevarious conditions. The dependent variables werethe ratings of sublimity, vitality, unease, and flow.The independent variables were movement (twolevels: movement versus no movement) and music(two levels: music versus no music). Two separateanalyses were performed, one for the groovy andone for the nongroovy excerpts. Post hoc compar-isons were calculated using the default decomposi-tion as implemented in the SPSS repeated-measureANOVA routine. The P values resulting from eachpost hoc comparison were then Bonferroni cor-rected. The threshold for statistical significance wasset in order to take into account the fact that a totalof 32 hypotheses were tested (two movement con-ditions × two music conditions × two groove con-ditions × four dependent variables), thus requiringan � level for post hoc comparisons of 0.05/32 =0.0016.

The relationships between kinematic/kinetic fea-tures and the emotion ratings collected followingthe dance condition were assessed by means of step-wise regression analyses. The independent variableswere the five motion-capture variables (PC1, PC2,PC3, movement complexity, and fluidity). Each ofthe four emotion ratings (sublimity, vitality, unease,and flow) was the dependent variable in a sep-arate regression analysis. Groovy and nongroovyexcerpts were analyzed together, such that each par-ticipant contributed two data points, one for the

groovy dance and one for the nongroovy dance.The adjusted R2 from the stepwise regression analy-ses was used as an estimate of the variance explainedfor each of the dependent variable.

Results

VitalityFigure 2 shows the mean ratings for self-reportedvitality, sublimity, unease, and flow in the base-line, dance, imitation, and listening still conditions.The sense of vitality, an aggregate of the two factorsjoyful activation and power, was strongly increasedwhen groovy music was present, regardless for thepresence or absence of movement (main effect ofmusic: F(1,38) = 70.3, P < 0.001, η2

p = 0.65, power =0.99; post hoc test: P < 0.001; P values for post hoctests are corrected for multiple comparisons). Vital-ity was also increased when movements were gen-erated, regardless of the presence of music (maineffect of movement: F(1,38) = 55.1, P < 0.001, η2

p =0.59, power = 0.99; post hoc: P < 0.001; music bymovement interaction: F(1,38) = 0.2, P = 0.68, n.s.).No statistically significant changes in the ratings ofvitality were detected for the nongroovy excerpts(for all post hoc, P > 0.05 following correction formultiple comparisons).

SublimityA qualitative overview of the factors feeding intothe sublimity scale showed that most of the changeswere attributable to the factors wonder, tenderness,



and nostalgia (the remaining factors being transcen-dence and peacefulness). Copying groove-inspiredmoves in the absence of music decreased the feelingsof sublimity compared to baseline (music by move-ment interaction: F(1,38) = 12.5, P = 0.001, η2

p =0.25, power = 0.98; post hoc: P = 0.043). No otherchanges in the ratings of sublimity were observed forthe groovy excerpts. Listening to nongroovy musicinstead strongly increased the feelings of sublim-ity, regardless of the presence of movement (maineffect of music: F(1,39) = 71.2, P < 0.001, η2

p = 0.65,power = 0.99; post hoc: P < 0.001). Copying thedance moves inspired by nongroovy music in theabsence of music decreased the feelings of sublim-ity compared with baseline, similar to what hap-pened in the case of groovy-inspired moves (musicby movement interaction: F(1,39) = 11.7, P = 0.001,η2

p = 0.23, power = 0.92; post hoc: P = 0.002).

UneaseNo significant changes were found in the rating ofunease, an aggregate of the factors tension and sad-ness, for any of the comparison between conditions(all P > 0.05).

FlowWhen dancing to groovy music, the experience offlow was stronger during dance compared with allthe other conditions (main effect of music: F(1,38) =5.3, P = 0.027, η2

p = 0.12, power = 0.80; main effectof movement: F(1,38) = 11.5, P = 0.002, η2

p = 0.23,power = 0.97; music by movement interaction:F(1,38) = 24.1, P < 0.001, η2

p = 0.39, power =0.99). Post hoc comparisons showed that, whengroovy music was present, participants experienceda stronger experience of flow if they were engagingin movement, compared with listening still (P <

0.001). On the other hand, when participantswere making movements, the degree of flow washigher if music was present compared with copyingthe dance moves in the absence of music (P <

0.001). Listening to groovy music in the absenceof movement did not increase the experience offlow beyond the baseline level (P > 0.9). Similarly,making groove-inspired moves in the absence ofmusic was not rated as having higher flow comparedwith baseline (P > 0.9). Listening to nongroovymusic increased the feelings of flow, regardless ofthe presence of movement (main effect of music:F(1,39) = 15.5, P < 0.001, η2

p = 0.28, power = 0.97;post hoc: P = 0.011). Dancing to nongroovy music

Table 3. Dance patterns and emotional responses: step-wise regression analyses

Adjusted R2 Variables � t P value

Vitality 0.51 PC1 0.72 9.0 <0.001

Sublimity 0.10 Fluidity 0.33 3.12 0.003

Unease 0.04 PC2 –0.23 –2.1 0.041

Flow 0.16 PC1 0.42 4.03 0.001

was also associated with a stronger flow experiencedcompared with imitating the same movements(music by movement interaction: F(1,39) = 10.1, P =0.003, η2

p = 0.21, power = 0.87; post hoc: P < 0.001).

Dance moves and emotional responsesTable 3 and Figure 3 report the results of the regres-sion analyses associating dance moves and emo-tional responses. About half of the variances in theratings of vitality were explained by PC1, indicatingthat, the more participants engaged in acceleratedand widespread whole-body movements involvingan exploration of the space, the more they experi-enced feelings of joy and power. The same motionpattern was also associated with stronger feelings offlow, although the amount of variance explained inthis case was less substantial (�15%). Feelings ofsublimity were positively associated with the degreeof movement fluidity. Finally, feelings of uneasewhile dancing were associated with an inhibitionof hand movements, as captured by a negative cor-relation with PC2.

Discussion

The results show that dancing to groovy music pro-duced a distinct state of heightened flow, whichwas not present when the same music was listenedto without engaging the body. Listening to groovymusic was also accompanied by intense feelings ofjoy and power, and these dimensions were experi-enced to a similar degree when dancing or listeningstill. Both listening and dancing to nongroovy musicwere also associated with a sense of flow and feel-ings of wonder, tenderness, and nostalgia. Copyinggroovy dance moves without music retained somefeelings of joy and power, but without the asso-ciated experience of flow, whereas copying non-groovy dance moves without music disrupted theemotional experience. Thus, both groove-inspiredmoves and groovy music may promote feeling ofjoy and power, but the combination of movement



Figure 3. Dance moves and emotional responses. The figure shows the emotion ratings for the four emotional dimensionsexamined plotted against the movement feature for which a reliable correlation could be established through a stepwise regressionanalysis. For a detailed description of the principal components, see the Methods section.

and music creates a qualitatively different experi-ence characterized by a feeling of flow.

Why do people experience high levels of flow dur-ing dance? First, flow experiences may be enhancedduring dance as a result of a reduction of rumina-tion and negative thoughts induced by engaging in aphysical activity.23–25 These psychological effects canbe accompanied by neurochemical changes that maybe also favorable to experiencing flow states, suchas the release of endogenous opioids in frontolim-bic brain circuits following physical exercise.26 Fur-thermore, the physical activity in question involvesa highly complex skill: whole-body sensorimotorsynchronization with the music. The apparent sim-plicity with which most adult individuals seamlesslymove in time with the beat masks the fact that devel-

oping this ability takes several years,27 and someindividuals never fully acquire it.28 This may explainwhy the complexity of dance meets the right condi-tion for a flow experience.14,29 Spontaneous danceto music may be a particularly favorable conditionto promote flow experiences, because each individ-ual can find their own level of motor engagement,one that is optimal for them. Dancing also providesimmediate feedback to one’s action, in the form ofsomatosensory, proprioceptive, and vestibular stim-ulation due to the movements of the whole body.Immediate feedback is believed to sustain flow expe-rience, as it decreases the need for higher order plan-ning and representation, which in turn decreases theneed for self-awareness, creating a situation wherepeople become so involved in what they are doing



that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost auto-matic (“merging between action and awareness”14).

The present study also shows that the presence(or absence) of music, rather than the combinationof music with movements, was the main determi-nant of emotions such as joy, power, wonder, ten-derness, and nostalgia. This finding is consistentwith what we previously observed for emotionalarousal, which was similarly increased when dancingor simply listening to groovy music.11 Conversely,emotional valence peaked specifically when dancingto groovy music, thus mirroring what we observedhere for the state of flow. The co-occurrence of flowstate and heightened pleasure in the dance conditionsuggests that our previous finding may well repre-sent the positive affect that is frequently reportedin association with flow experiences.14 The analy-sis of dance motion pattern shows that the inten-sity of the flow state was related to the generationof accelerated and widespread whole-body move-ments, involving a wide exploration of the spacein the room. The same motions also predicted thefeelings of joy and power recorded in this study,as well as the degree of emotional arousal recordedin our previous investigation.11 These findings areconsistent with the idea that a deeper state of flow isexperienced by participants who engage more withtheir bodies, thus raising the level of complexityfor the sensorimotor synchronization task as wellas creating the opportunity for more consistent andrich peripheral feedback. The physiological arousalgenerated in this way would possibly create a fertileground to experience and inflate concurrent emo-tions of joy and power.

The enhancement of flow during dance wasspecifically observed when dancing to groovy music.This finding can be explained when consideringthat groovy music provides a robust framework forassociating movements with sounds, more so thanin other music genres. Several studies have shownthat this type of music is constructed in such away to maximize motor affordances and sensorimo-tor entrainment. For example, the tempo resemblesthe natural oscillatory frequencies of locomotionand arm-swing,30 and the clear pulse facilitates theentrainment of biomechanical oscillators.31 Groovymusic also typically contains a certain degree ofsyncopation—the presence of a note on a metricallyweak accent preceding a rest on a metrically strongaccent.32 Recent studies suggest that the amount

of syncopation in groovy music is just enough toviolate the listener’s expectations about the unfold-ing of the metric structure, thus maintaining ahigh level of interest in the listening, but not somuch that it would interfere with the sensorimotorsynchronization.15,33 It has been also speculated thatthe emphasis on the upbeat provided by syncopa-tion may aid the generation of movements directedagainst gravity, thus encouraging the continuationof the motion pattern.34 The motor entrainmenttriggered by groovy music could be a further expla-nation for the increased sense of flow in our find-ings. People may experience heightened flow whendancing to groovy music because their movementsfeel effortless, automatic, and almost unconsciouslygenerated.

The experiment reported here only studiedparticipants dancing alone. In future studies, itwould be interesting to investigate the enhancementof emotional experience during dance in a groupcontext. In many real-life situations, dancinghappens with other people. Dancing in a group mayamplify the effects we observed here even furtherand possibly result in an increase of other emotionaldimensions beyond flow, compared with listeningwithout movements. One such dimension couldbe the dynamics of relating and emotional bondingwithin a group. For example, a recent study showedthat the level of cooperation within a group isincreased when dancing in synchrony and sharingintentionality with other members, compared withasynchronous dance.35 In turn, cooperation andsynchronization during dance have been shownto affect higher level cognitive functions, such asmemory recall of features of the people involvedin the dance.36 Certain types of music may bemore effective than others in specifically enhancingemotional responses through a group dynamic. Infact, specific features of the music may contributeto promote synchronism and the associated feelingswithin a group, one example being the break–buildup–drop routine of electronic dance music.37 Theemotional group dynamic during dance may be alsomodulated by the motor behavior of the dancers,such as conscious imitation and unconsciousmimicry and synchronization of the participants’movements within the group.38,39

Despite the attempt to maximize the naturalnessof the dance situation, with club-like dimmed lightsand nobody watching, some limitations need to be



taken into consideration in terms of the ecologicalvalidity of this study. The fact that dancing hap-pened in a research laboratory, with participantssurrounded by motion-capture cameras and wear-ing various sensors, is likely to have interfered tosome extent with participants’ authentic emotionaland motor expression. The instruction to partic-ipants to “concentrate on your emotional state,”knowing that they would be later asked to reportabout it, may also have altered, in either direction,their emotional responses. A question should alsobe raised around whether and to what extent partic-ipants may have guessed and unconsciously tried tohelp the experimenters achieve the expected results.The significant correlations observed between emo-tional scores and movement features suggest thatat least part of the emotional responses are likelyto be genuine, rather than being solely an artifactof trying to please the experimenter in the absenceof an actual emotional experience. As noted earlier,dancing is in many cases a social behavior, and thusit differs from the design of our task, which involveddancing alone. A limitation also pertains to the imi-tation condition. Whereas dancing was performedspontaneously, copying requires a cognitive effort,which may have on its own reduced the emotionalresponse.

Further considerations about the limits of thisstudy pertain to the choice of the measurementtools. The GEMS questionnaire, which we utilizedto asses emotional responses, was originally devel-oped based on a sample of excerpts, with a majority(�70%) of excerpts from the classical music andthe remaining excerpts coming from rock, world,and jazz music. It is therefore possible that the nine-factor structure underlying the GEMS questionnairemay not be entirely appropriate to correctly classifyemotional responses when assessing groovy music.A recent study by Aljanaki and collaborators40

sought to verify this by testing 1778 participants,using 400 music excerpts from four different musicgenres, including rock and pop. These authorsshowed that the internal consistency of the nineGEMS factors is generally satisfying across genres,with seven of nine factors yielding average valuesof Chronbach’s � greater than 0.7. Nonetheless,the subscales of amazement and solemnity, whichcontribute to the sublimity score used in our study,showed lower scores for average internal consis-tency (0.46 and 0.65, respectively), suggesting that

the GEMS may need further development. Somelimitations also apply to the Core Flow Question-naire, used in the present study to assess the degreeto which participants experienced a flow stateduring each condition. It has been established thatempirical assessments of flow only reflect partialcomponents of the experience.20,21,41 The multidi-mensionality of the concept renders its measure-ments difficult to interpret, especially when there isonly one measure implied. As for many other self-report measures, the flow scale employed here is alsosubject to the problem of retrospective recall. Thecombination of different measures, such as physi-ological data or multiple questionnaires, would beuseful in future studies to obviate these limitations.

The findings reported here provide an empiricalrationale for the use of dance in numerous health-related applications. Flow states have been shown tonegatively correlate with anxiety42,43 and positivelycorrelate with self-esteem, perceived ability, and atendency to adopt active rather than passive cop-ing strategies.42–44 Therefore, dance may offer anaccessible and engaging tool to promote and sustainexperiences of flow in the context of psychologicalinterventions as well as physical rehabilitation.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the help of MarielleSaucier and Eva Nadon in selecting the musicexcerpts, Solomon Krueger for insightful conversa-tions in the design stage of the study, and the help ofBirgitta Burger in using the MoCap toolbox. N.F.B.and I.P. designed the experiment; N.F.B. designedthe data collection and analysis tools; N.F.B. andA.B.-P. collected the data; N.F.B. and A.B.-P. ana-lyzed the data; and N.F.B., A.B.-P., and I.P. draftedand revised the paper. The study was supportedby grants from the Canada Research Chair (CRC)program to I.P.

Supporting information

Additional supporting information may be foundin the online version of this article.

Appendix 1. Instructions to participants.

Appendix 2. Principal component analysis.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.



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