My research focuses on the roles and dynamic relationships between people, technology and the world around us. My goal is to uncover how we experience and understand interaction with our senses and bodies and how this can inform design.
As a musician, I am especially interested in the role technology has in human creativity. My work has centred around the interaction and relationship vocalists have with their voices — both body and instrument — and how technology mediates, informs, and even disrupts this connection.
Simplex plots afford barycentric mapping and visualisation of the ratio of three variables, summed to a constant, as positions in an equilateral triangle (2-simplex); for instance, time distribution in three-interval musical rhythms. We propose a novel use of simplex plots to visualise the balance of autonomic variables and classification of autonomic states during baseline and music performance. RR interval series extracted from electrocardiographic (ECG) traces were collected from a musical trio (pianist, violinist, cellist) in a baseline (5 min) and music performance (\sim10 min) condition. Schubert’s Trio Op. 100, \textitAndante con moto was performed in nine rehearsal sessions over five days. Each RR interval series’ very low (VLF), low (LF), and high (HF) frequency component power values, calculated in 30 sec windows (hop size 15 sec), were normalised to 1 and visualised in triangle simplex plots. Spectral clustering was used to cluster data points for baseline and music conditions. We correlated the accuracy between the clustered and true values. Strong negative correlation was observed for the violinist (r = –0.80, p ≤.01, accuracy range: [0.64, 0.94]) and pianist (r = –0.62, p = .073, [0.64, 0.80]), suggesting adaptation of their cardiac response (reduction between baseline and performance) over the performances; a weakly negative, non-significant correlation was observed for the cellist (r = –0.23, p = .545, [0.50, 0.61]), indicating similarity between baseline and performance over time. Using simplex plots, we were able to effectively represent VLF, LF and HF ratios and track changes in autonomic response over a series of music rehearsals to observe autonomic states and changes over time.
@inproceedings{Solinski_CinC23_TriangleSimplex,title={{Triangle Simplex Plots for Representing and Classifying Heart Rate Variability}},author={Soliński, Mateusz and Reed, Courtney N. and Chew, Elaine},year={2023},booktitle={{2023 Computing in Cardiology Conference (CinC)}},location={Atlanta, GA, USA},}
Time Delay Stability Analysis of Pairwise Interactions Amongst Ensemble-Listener RR Intervals and Expressive Music Features
Mateusz Soliński, Courtney N. Reed, and Elaine Chew
In 2023 Computing in Cardiology Conference (CinC), 2023
Time Delay Stability (TDS) can reveal physiological function and states in networked organs. Here, we introduce a novel application of TDS to a musical setting to study interactions between RR intervals of ensemble musicians and a listener, and music properties. Three musicians performed a movement from Schubert’s Trio Op. 100 nine times in the company of one listener. Their RR intervals were collected during baseline (5 min, silence) and performances (\sim10 min each). Loudness and tempo were extracted from recorded music audio. Regions of stable optimal time delay were identified during baseline and music, shuffled data, and data pairs from incongruent recordings. Bootstrapping was employed to obtain mean TDS probabilities (calculated based on all performances). A significant difference in mean TDS probability between music and baseline is observed for all musician pairs (p<.001) and for cello-listener (p=.025); mean TDS probability being greater during music. A significant decrease in mean TDS probability was observed for piano-violin (p<.001), violin-tempo (p=.045), and cello-tempo (p<.001) for incongruent pairs. The highest inter-musician TDS probabilities were observed in musically tense sections: the final climax before the music dies down for the ending and mid piece in a suspenseful swell. This framework offers a promising way to track dynamic RR interval interactions between people engaged in a shared activity, and, in this musical activity, between the people and music properties.
@inproceedings{Solinski_CinC23_TRDanalysis,title={{Time Delay Stability Analysis of Pairwise Interactions Amongst Ensemble-Listener RR Intervals and Expressive Music Features}},author={Soliński, Mateusz and Reed, Courtney N. and Chew, Elaine},year={2023},booktitle={{2023 Computing in Cardiology Conference (CinC)}},location={Atlanta, GA, USA},}
