Social Support as a Facilitator of Musical Self-Efficacy.

Previous research has shown that musical self-efficacy is one of the predictors of academic achievement, but few studies have analyzed the function of social support in the construction of musical self-efficacy. In this study we analyze the relationship between three sources of support perceived by music students - parents, teachers, and peers - and their influence on levels of self-efficacy for learning and for public performance. We analyze three groups of students under the hypothesis that relationships among those variables can vary with age and the level of education. A total of 444 students enrolled in six Spanish music schools, two music universities, and four advanced music schools, completed the Social Support Scale for Music Students, as well as the General Musical Self-Efficacy Scale. Results reveal significant relationships among the aforementioned variables, with considerable variation according to academic level. For the youngest students enrolled in advanced music schools (conservatorios profesionales), the role of parents and teachers was crucial, especially for predicting self-efficacy for learning, which, in turn, is the best predictor of self-efficacy for public performance. For the 16-18-year-olds enrolled in the same advanced music schools, their peers play a particularly relevant role in reinforcing their self-efficacy for learning. Social support had a negligible influence on the self-efficacy of university-level students, but they did experience a strong relationship between self-efficacy for learning, on the one hand, and public performance, on the other. We interpret these results in view of potential long-term careers in music, relating them with a series of different agents.

Music Self-Efficacy for Performance: An Explanatory Model Based on Social Support.

Personal perceptions of self-efficacy are particularly relevant in the field of music performance, which is oriented toward the outward expressions of one's own ability through public performances. Within this context, a number of personal variables, including social support and performance anxiety, have been shown to be associated with musical success and are therefore relevant for research that seeks to understand the four sources of self-efficacy (mastery experiences, vicarious observation, verbal persuasion, physiological states) that are integral components of Bandura's (2002) Social Learning Theory. Previous research, as well as observed differences among musicians associated with educational level (preuniversity) and gender (male/female), underpins the context of this study, which presents evidence regarding the factors that are capable of mediating perceptions of self-efficacy for musical performance. Specifically, the main objectives of this study were to more clearly understand relations between social support, public performance, musical performance anxiety, and self-efficacy using structural equation modeling and to compare these results according to gender. A battery of questionnaires was submitted to 359 preuniversity Spanish music students. Results highlight the relevance of family support for self-efficacy in public performance: directly and mediated through musical performance anxiety. The role of teachers and peers appeared to be relevant only for boys and was mediated through performance anxiety. Public performances lead to a greater degree of musical self-efficacy, but only in girls. Further research shall be required in order to improve pedagogical methods and help teachers increasingly individualize their teaching.

Comparing diffuse optical tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging signals during a cognitive task: pilot study.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) measures concentration changes in both oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin providing three-dimensional images of local brain activations. A pilot study, which compares both DOT and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) volumes through t-maps given by canonical statistical parametric mapping (SPM) processing for both data modalities, is presented. The DOT series were processed using a method that is based on a Bayesian filter application on raw DOT data to remove physiological changes and minimum description length application index to select a number of singular values, which reduce the data dimensionality during image reconstruction and adaptation of DOT volume series to normalized standard space. Therefore, statistical analysis is performed with canonical SPM software in the same way as fMRI analysis is done, accepting DOT volumes as if they were fMRI volumes. The results show the reproducibility and ruggedness of the method to process DOT series on group analysis using cognitive paradigms on the prefrontal cortex. Difficulties such as the fact that scalp-brain distances vary between subjects or cerebral activations are difficult to reproduce due to strategies used by the subjects to solve arithmetic problems are considered. T-images given by fMRI and DOT volume series analyzed in SPM show that at the functional level, both DOT and fMRI measures detect the same areas, although DOT provides complementary information to fMRI signals about cerebral activity.

Enhancing sensorimotor activity by controlling virtual objects with gaze.

This fMRI work studies brain activity of healthy volunteers who manipulated a virtual object in the context of a digital game by applying two different control methods: using their right hand or using their gaze. The results show extended activations in sensorimotor areas, not only when participants played in the traditional way (using their hand) but also when they used their gaze to control the virtual object. Furthermore, with the exception of the primary motor cortex, regional motor activity was similar regardless of what the effector was: the arm or the eye. These results have a potential application in the field of the neurorehabilitation as a new approach to generate activation of the sensorimotor system to support the recovery of the motor functions.