Neural oscillations suggest periodicity encoding during auditory beat processing in the premature brain.

When exposed to rhythmic patterns with temporal regularity, adults exhibit an inherent ability to extract and anticipate an underlying sequence of regularly spaced beats, which is internally constructed, as beats are experienced even when no events occur at beat positions (e.g., in the case of rests). Perception of rhythm and synchronization to periodicity is indispensable for development of cognitive functions, social interaction, and adaptive behavior. We evaluated neural oscillatory activity in premature newborns (n = 19, mean age, 32 ± 2.59 weeks gestational age) during exposure to an auditory rhythmic sequence, aiming to identify early traces of periodicity encoding and rhythm processing through entrainment of neural oscillations at this stage of neurodevelopment. The rhythmic sequence elicited a systematic modulation of alpha power, synchronized to expected beat locations coinciding with both tones and rests, and independent of whether the beat was preceded by tone or rest. In addition, the periodic alpha-band fluctuations reached maximal power slightly before the corresponding beat onset times. Together, our results show neural encoding of periodicity in the premature brain involving neural oscillations in the alpha range that are much faster than the beat tempo, through alignment of alpha power to the beat tempo, consistent with observations in adults on predictive processing of temporal regularities in auditory rhythms. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: In response to the presented rhythmic pattern, systematic modulations of alpha power showed that the premature brain extracted the temporal regularity of the underlying beat. In contrast to evoked potentials, which are greatly reduced when there is no sounds event, the modulation of alpha power occurred for beats coinciding with both tones and rests in a predictive way. The findings provide the first evidence for the neural coding of periodicity in auditory rhythm perception before the age of term.

Auditory rhythm facilitates perception and action in children at risk for developmental coordination disorder.

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder featuring deficits in motor coordination and motor timing among children. Deficits in rhythmic tracking, including perceptually tracking and synchronizing action with auditory rhythms, have been studied in a wide range of motor disorders, providing a foundation for developing rehabilitation programs incorporating auditory rhythms. We tested whether DCD also features these auditory-motor deficits among 7-10 year-old children. In a speech recognition task with no overt motor component, modulating the speech rhythm interfered more with the performance of children at risk for DCD than typically developing (TD) children. A set of auditory-motor tapping tasks further showed that, although children at risk for DCD performed worse than TD children in general, the presence of an auditory rhythmic cue (isochronous metronome or music) facilitated the temporal consistency of tapping. Finally, accuracy in the recognition of rhythmically modulated speech and tapping consistency correlated with performance on the standardized motor assessment. Together, the results show auditory rhythmic regularity benefits auditory perception and auditory-motor coordination in children at risk for DCD. This provides a foundation for future clinical studies to develop evidence-based interventions involving auditory-motor rhythmic coordination for children with DCD.

Concurrent Supra-Postural Auditory-Hand Coordination Task Affects Postural Control: Using Sonification to Explore Environmental Unpredictability in Factors Affecting Fall Risk.

Clinical screening tests for balance and mobility often fall short of predicting fall risk. Cognitive distractors and unpredictable external stimuli, common in busy natural environments, contribute to this risk, especially in older adults. Less is known about the effects of upper sensory-motor coordination, such as coordinating one's hand with an external stimulus. We combined movement sonification and affordable inertial motion sensors to develop a task for the precise measurement and manipulation of full-body interaction with stimuli in the environment. In a double-task design, we studied how a supra-postural activity affected quiet stance. The supra-postural task consisted of rhythmic synchronization with a repetitive auditory stimulus. The stimulus was attentionally demanding because it was being modulated continuously. The participant's hand movement was sonified in real time, and their goal was to synchronize their hand movement with the stimulus. In the unpredictable condition, the tempo changed at random points in the trial. A separate sensor recorded postural fluctuations. Young healthy adults were compared to older adult (OA) participants without known risk of falling. The results supported the hypothesis that supra-postural coordination would entrain postural control. The effect was stronger in OAs, supporting the idea that diminished reserve capacities reduce the ability to isolate postural control from sensory-motor and cognitive activity.

Babies, bugs and brains: How the early microbiome associates with infant brain and behavior development.

Growing evidence is demonstrating the connection between the microbiota gut-brain axis and neurodevelopment. Microbiota colonization occurs before the maturation of many neural systems and is linked to brain health. Because of this it has been hypothesized that the early microbiome interactions along the gut-brain axis evolved to promote advanced cognitive functions and behaviors. Here, we performed a pilot study with a multidisciplinary approach to test if the microbiota composition of infants is associated with measures of early cognitive development, in particular neural rhythm tracking; language (forward speech) versus non-language (backwards speech) discrimination; and social joint attention. Fecal samples were collected from 56 infants between four and six months of age and sequenced by shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Of these, 44 performed the behavioral Point and Gaze test to measure joint attention. Infants were tested on either language discrimination using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS; 25 infants had usable data) or neural rhythm tracking using electroencephalogram (EEG; 15 had usable data). Infants who succeeded at the Point and Gaze test tended to have increased Actinobacteria and reduced Firmicutes at the phylum level; and an increase in Bifidobacterium and Eggerthella along with a reduction in Hungatella and Streptococcus at the genus level. Measurements of neural rhythm tracking associated negatively to the abundance of Bifidobacterium and positively to the abundance of Clostridium and Enterococcus for the bacterial abundances, and associated positively to metabolic pathways that can influence neurodevelopment, including branched chain amino acid biosynthesis and pentose phosphate pathways. No associations were found for the fNIRS language discrimination measurements. Although the tests were underpowered due to the small pilot sample sizes, potential associations were identified between the microbiome and measurements of early cognitive development that are worth exploring further.

Early social communication through music: State of the art and future perspectives.

A growing body of research shows that the universal capacity for music perception and production emerges early in development. Possibly building on this predisposition, caregivers around the world often communicate with infants using songs or speech entailing song-like characteristics. This suggests that music might be one of the earliest developing and most accessible forms of interpersonal communication, providing a platform for studying early communicative behavior. However, little research has examined music in truly communicative contexts. The current work aims to facilitate the development of experimental approaches that rely on dynamic and naturalistic social interactions. We first review two longstanding lines of research that examine musical interactions by focusing either on the caregiver or the infant. These include defining the acoustic and non-acoustic features that characterize infant-directed (ID) music, as well as behavioral and neurophysiological research examining infants' processing of musical timing and pitch. Next, we review recent studies looking at early musical interactions holistically. This research focuses on how caregivers and infants interact using music to achieve co-regulation, mutual engagement, and increase affiliation and prosocial behavior. We conclude by discussing methodological, technological, and analytical advances that might empower a comprehensive study of musical communication in early childhood.

Dynamic models for musical rhythm perception and coordination.

Rhythmicity permeates large parts of human experience. Humans generate various motor and brain rhythms spanning a range of frequencies. We also experience and synchronize to externally imposed rhythmicity, for example from music and song or from the 24-h light-dark cycles of the sun. In the context of music, humans have the ability to perceive, generate, and anticipate rhythmic structures, for example, "the beat." Experimental and behavioral studies offer clues about the biophysical and neural mechanisms that underlie our rhythmic abilities, and about different brain areas that are involved but many open questions remain. In this paper, we review several theoretical and computational approaches, each centered at different levels of description, that address specific aspects of musical rhythmic generation, perception, attention, perception-action coordination, and learning. We survey methods and results from applications of dynamical systems theory, neuro-mechanistic modeling, and Bayesian inference. Some frameworks rely on synchronization of intrinsic brain rhythms that span the relevant frequency range; some formulations involve real-time adaptation schemes for error-correction to align the phase and frequency of a dedicated circuit; others involve learning and dynamically adjusting expectations to make rhythm tracking predictions. Each of the approaches, while initially designed to answer specific questions, offers the possibility of being integrated into a larger framework that provides insights into our ability to perceive and generate rhythmic patterns.

Rhythm in the Premature Neonate Brain: Very Early Processing of Auditory Beat and Meter.

The ability to extract rhythmic structure is important for the development of language, music, and social communication. Although previous studies show infants' brains entrain to the periodicities of auditory rhythms and even different metrical interpretations (e.g., groups of two vs three beats) of ambiguous rhythms, whether the premature brain tracks beat and meter frequencies has not been explored previously. We used high-resolution electroencephalography while premature infants (n = 19, 5 male; mean age, 32 ± 2.59 weeks gestational age) heard two auditory rhythms in the incubators. We observed selective enhancement of the neural response at both beat- and meter-related frequencies. Further, neural oscillations at the beat and duple (groups of 2) meter were phase aligned with the envelope of the auditory rhythmic stimuli. Comparing the relative power at beat and meter frequencies across stimuli and frequency revealed evidence for selective enhancement of duple meter. This suggests that even at this early stage of development, neural mechanisms for processing auditory rhythms beyond simple sensory coding are present. Our results add to a few previous neuroimaging studies demonstrating discriminative auditory abilities of premature neural networks. Specifically, our results demonstrate the early capacities of the immature neural circuits and networks to code both simple beat and beat grouping (i.e., hierarchical meter) regularities of auditory sequences. Considering the importance of rhythm processing for acquiring language and music, our findings indicate that even before birth, the premature brain is already learning this important aspect of the auditory world in a sophisticated and abstract way.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Processing auditory rhythm is of great neurodevelopmental importance. In an electroencephalography experiment in premature newborns, we found converging evidence that when presented with auditory rhythms, the premature brain encodes multiple periodicities corresponding to beat and beat grouping (meter) frequencies, and even selectively enhances the neural response to meter compared with beat, as in human adults. We also found that the phase of low-frequency neural oscillations aligns to the envelope of the auditory rhythms and that this phenomenon becomes less precise at lower frequencies. These findings demonstrate the initial capacities of the developing brain to code auditory rhythm and the importance of special care to the auditory environment of this vulnerable population during a highly dynamic period of neural development.

The complexity-aesthetics relationship for musical rhythm is more fixed than flexible: Evidence from children and expert dancers.

The urge to move to music (groove) depends in part on rhythmic syncopation in the music. For adults, the syncopation-groove relationship has an inverted-U shape: listeners want to move most to rhythms that have some, but not too much, syncopation. However, we do not know whether the syncopation-groove relationship is relatively sensitive to, or resistant to, a listener's experience. In two sets of experiments, we tested whether the syncopation-groove relationship is affected by dance experience or changes through development in childhood. Dancers and nondancers rated groove for 50 rhythmic patterns varying in syncopation. Dancers' and nondancers' ratings did not differ (and Bayesian tests provided substantial evidence that they were equivalent) in terms of mean groove and the optimal level of syncopation. Similarly, ballet and hip-hop dancers' syncopation-groove relationships did not differ. However, dancers had more robust syncopation-groove relationships (higher goodness-of-fit) than nondancers. Children (3-6 years old) completed two tasks to assess their syncopation-groove relationships: In a 2-alternative-forced choice task, children compared rhythms from 2 of 3 possible levels of syncopation (low, medium, and high) and chose which rhythm in a pair was better for dancing. In a dance task, children danced to the same rhythms. Results from both tasks indicated that for children, as for adults, medium syncopation rhythms elicit more groove than low syncopation rhythms. A follow-up experiment replicated the 2-alternative-forced choice task results. Taken together, the results suggest the optimal level of syncopation for groove is resistant to experience, although experience may affect the robustness of the inverted-U relationship. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: In Experiment 1, dancers and nondancers rated groove (the urge to move) for musical rhythms, demonstrating the same inverted-U relationships between syncopation and groove. In Experiment 2, children and adults both chose rhythms with moderate syncopation more than low syncopation as more groove-inducing or better for dancing. Children also danced more for moderate than low syncopation, showing a close perception-behavior relationship across tasks. Similarities in the syncopation-groove relationship regardless of dance training and age suggest that this perceptual and behavioral groove response to rhythmic complexity may be quite resistant to experience.

Undetectable very-low frequency sound increases dancing at a live concert.

Does low frequency sound (bass) make people dance more? Music that makes people want to move tends to have more low frequency sound, and bass instruments typically provide the musical pulse that people dance to1. Low pitches confer advantages in perception and movement timing, and elicit stronger neural responses for timing compared to high pitches2, suggesting superior sensorimotor communication. Low frequency sound is processed via vibrotactile3 and vestibular4 (in addition to auditory) pathways, and stimulation of these non-auditory modalities in the context of music can increase ratings of groove (the pleasurable urge to move to music)3, and modulate musical rhythm perception4. Anecdotal accounts describe intense physical and psychological effects of low frequencies, especially in electronic dance music5, possibly reflecting effects on physiological arousal. We do not, however, know if these associations extend to direct causal effects of low frequencies in complex, real-world, social contexts like dancing at concerts, or if low frequencies that are not consciously detectable can affect behaviour. We tested whether non-auditory low-frequency stimulation would increase audience dancing by turning very-low frequency (VLF) speakers on and off during a live electronic music concert and measuring audience members' movements using motion-capture. Movement increased when VLFs were present, and because the VLFs were below or near auditory thresholds (and a subsequent experiment suggested they were undetectable), we believe this represents an unconscious effect on behaviour, possibly via vestibular and/or tactile processing.

Follow the sound of my violin: Granger causality reflects information flow in sound.

Recent research into how musicians coordinate their expressive timing, phrasing, articulation, dynamics, and other stylistic characteristics during performances has highlighted the role of predictive processes, as musicians must anticipate how their partners will play in order to be together. Several studies have used information flow techniques such as Granger causality to show that upcoming movements of a musician can be predicted from immediate past movements of fellow musicians. Although musicians must move to play their instruments, a major goal of music making is to create a joint interpretation through the sounds they produce. Yet, information flow techniques have not been applied previously to examine the role that fellow musicians' sound output plays in these predictive processes and whether this changes as they learn to play together. In the present experiment, we asked professional violinists to play along with recordings of two folk pieces, each eight times in succession, and compared the amplitude envelopes of their performances with those of the recordings using Granger causality to measure information flow and cross-correlation to measure similarity and synchronization. In line with our hypotheses, our measure of information flow was higher from the recordings to the performances than vice versa, and decreased as the violinists became more familiar with the recordings over trials. This decline in information flow is consistent with a gradual shift from relying on auditory cues to predict the recording to relying on an internally-based (learned) model built through repetition. There was also evidence that violinists became more synchronized with the recordings over trials. These results shed light on the planning and learning processes involved in the aligning of expressive intentions in group music performance and lay the groundwork for the application of Granger causality to investigate information flow through sound in more complex musical interactions.

Creating a shared musical interpretation: Changes in coordination dynamics while learning unfamiliar music together.

The ability to coordinate with others is fundamental for humans to achieve shared goals. Often, harmonious interpersonal coordination requires learning, such as ensemble musicians rehearing together to synchronize their low-level timing and high-level aesthetic musical expressions. We investigated how the coordination dynamics of a professional string quartet changed as they learned unfamiliar pieces together across eight trials. During all trials, we recorded each musician's body sway motion data, and quantified the group's body sway similarity (cross-correlation) and information flow (Granger causality) on each trial. In line with our hypothesis, group similarity increased, while group information flow decreased significantly across trials. In addition, there was a trend such that group similarity, but not information flow, was related to the quality of the performances. As the ensemble converged on a joint interpretation through rehearsing, their body sways reflected the change from interpersonal information flow for coordinative mutual adaptations and corrections, to synchronous musical coordination made possible by the musicians learning a common internally based expressive interpretation.

Evidence for top-down metre perception in infancy as shown by primed neural responses to an ambiguous rhythm.

From auditory rhythm patterns, listeners extract the underlying steady beat and perceptually group beats to form metres. While previous studies show infants discriminate different auditory metres, it remains unknown whether they can maintain (imagine) a metrical interpretation of an ambiguous rhythm through top-down processes. We investigated this via electroencephalographic mismatch responses. We primed 6-month-old infants (N = 24) to hear a 6-beat ambiguous rhythm either in duple metre (n = 13) or in triple metre (n = 11) through loudness accents either on every second or every third beat. Periods of priming were inserted before sequences of the ambiguous unaccented rhythm. To elicit mismatch responses, occasional pitch deviants occurred on either beat 4 (strong beat in triple metre; weak in duple) or beat 5 (strong in duple; weak in triple) of the unaccented trials. At frontal left sites, we found a significant interaction between beat and priming group in the predicted direction. Post-hoc analyses showed that mismatch response amplitudes were significantly larger for beat 5 in the duple-primed than triple-primed group (p = .047) and were non-significantly larger for beat 4 in the triple-primed than duple-primed group. Further, amplitudes were generally larger in infants with musically experienced parents. At frontal right sites, mismatch responses were generally larger for those in the duple compared with triple group, which may reflect a processing advantage for duple metre. These results indicate that infants can impose a top-down, internally generated metre on ambiguous auditory rhythms, an ability that would aid early language and music learning.

"Taste typicality" is a foundational and multi-modal dimension of ordinary aesthetic experience.

Aesthetic experience seems both regular and idiosyncratic. On one hand, there are powerful regularities in what we tend to find attractive versus unattractive (e.g., beaches versus mud puddles).1-4 On the other hand, our tastes also vary dramatically from person to person:5-8 what one of us finds beautiful, another might find distasteful. What is the nature of such differences? They may in part be arbitrary-e.g., reflecting specific past judgments (such as liking red towels over blue ones because they were once cheaper). However, they may also in part be systematic-reflecting deeper differences in perception and/or cognition. We assessed the systematicity of aesthetic taste by exploring its typicality for the first time across seeing and hearing. Observers rated the aesthetic appeal of ordinary scenes and objects (e.g., beaches, buildings, and books) and environmental sounds (e.g., doorbells, dripping, and dialtones). We then measured "taste typicality" (separately for each modality) in terms of the similarity between each individual's aesthetic preferences and the population's average. The data revealed two primary patterns. First, taste typicality was not arbitrary but rather was correlated to a moderate degree across seeing and hearing: people who have typical taste for images also tend to have typical taste for sounds. Second, taste typicality captured most of the explainable variance in people's impressions, showing that it is the primary dimension along which aesthetic tastes systematically vary.

The sound of silence: Predictive error responses to unexpected sound omission in adults.

The human auditory system excels at detecting patterns needed for processing speech and music. According to predictive coding, the brain predicts incoming sounds, compares predictions to sensory input and generates a prediction error whenever a mismatch between the prediction and sensory input occurs. Predictive coding can be indexed in electroencephalography (EEG) with the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a, two components of event-related potentials (ERP) that are elicited by infrequent deviant sounds (e.g., differing in pitch, duration and loudness) in a stream of frequent sounds. If these components reflect prediction error, they should also be elicited by omitting an expected sound, but few studies have examined this. We compared ERPs elicited by infrequent randomly occurring omissions (unexpected silences) in tone sequences presented at two tones per second to ERPs elicited by frequent, regularly occurring omissions (expected silences) within a sequence of tones presented at one tone per second. We found that unexpected silences elicited significant MMN and P3a, although the magnitude of these components was quite small and variable. These results provide evidence for hierarchical predictive coding, indicating that the brain predicts silences and sounds.

Understanding the origins of musicality requires reconstructing the interactive dance between music-specific adaptations, exaptations, and cultural creations.

The evolutionary origins of complex capacities such as musicality are not simple, and likely involved many interacting steps of musicality-specific adaptations, exaptations, and cultural creation. A full account of the origins of musicality needs to consider the role of ancient adaptations such as credible singing, auditory scene analysis, and prediction-reward circuits in constraining the emergence of musicality.

Cross-frequency coupling explains the preference for simple ratios in rhythmic behaviour and the relative stability across non-synchronous patterns.

Rhythms are important for understanding coordinated behaviours in ecological systems. The repetitive nature of rhythms affords prediction, planning of movements and coordination of processes within and between individuals. A major challenge is to understand complex forms of coordination when they differ from complete synchronization. By expressing phase as ratio of a cycle, we adapted levels of the Farey tree as a metric of complexity mapped to the range between in-phase and anti-phase synchronization. In a bimanual tapping task, this revealed an increase of variability with ratio complexity, a range of hidden and unstable yet measurable modes, and a rank-frequency scaling law across these modes. We use the phase-attractive circle map to propose an interpretation of these findings in terms of hierarchical cross-frequency coupling (CFC). We also consider the tendency for small-integer attractors in the single-hand repeated tapping of three-interval rhythms reported in the literature. The phase-attractive circle map has wider basins of attractions for such ratios. This work motivates the question whether CFC intrinsic to neural dynamics implements low-level priors for timing and coordination and thus becomes involved in phenomena as diverse as attractor states in bimanual coordination and the cross-cultural tendency for musical rhythms to have simple interval ratios. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.

Atypical beta power fluctuation while listening to an isochronous sequence in dyslexia.

OBJECTIVE: Developmental dyslexia is a reading disorder that features difficulties in perceiving and tracking rhythmic regularities in auditory streams, such as speech and music. Studies on typical healthy participants have shown that power fluctuations of neural oscillations in beta band (15-25 Hz) reflect an essential mechanism for tracking rhythm or entrainment and relate to predictive timing and attentional processes. Here we investigated whether adults with dyslexia have atypical beta power fluctuation. METHODS: The electroencephalographic activities of individuals with dyslexia (n = 13) and typical control participants (n = 13) were measured while they passively listened to an isochronous tone sequence (2 Hz presentation rate). The time-frequency neural activities generated from auditory cortices were analyzed. RESULTS: The phase of beta power fluctuation at the 2 Hz stimulus presentation rate differed and appeared opposite between individuals with dyslexia and controls. CONCLUSIONS: Atypical beta power fluctuation might reflect deficits in perceiving and tracking auditory rhythm in dyslexia. SIGNIFICANCE: These findings extend our understanding of atypical neural activities for tracking rhythm in dyslexia and could inspire novel methods to objectively measure the benefits of training, and predict potential benefit of auditory rhythmic rehabilitation programs on an individual basis.

Extra-Curricular Activities and Well-Being: Results From a Survey of Undergraduate University Students During COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions.

Participation in extra-curricular activities has been found to associate with increased well-being. Here we investigated in a survey (n = 786) what activities university students at a Canadian university engaged in during the stressful COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in April, 2020, which coincided with a novel online exam period, and how these activities related to perceived well-being, anxiety (STAI-S), social aspects of activities, and personality. Sixty-five percentage of students scored in the high anxiety category of the STAI-S, an alarming statistic given that only 24% had reached out for professional supports. This is consistent with reports that current supports on university campuses are inadequate. Listening to music (92%) and watching movies/series (92%) were engaged in most frequently, followed by socializing virtually (89%) and engaging in social media (85%). The activities students rated as most helpful to their well-being were somewhat different, with outdoor exercise rated highest, followed by socializing virtually and listening to music. While all activities were rated as beneficial, those with a social component tended to have high ratings, consistent with students attempting to replace lost social interactions. Linear regression models found few associations between STAI-S scores and other measures, likely because of large individual differences and lack of a pre-pandemic baseline needed to assess changes in anxiety. The importance of individual differences was evident in that those higher in conscientiousness or extraversion or emotional stability were more likely to engage in exercise, while those higher in openness to experience were more likely to engage in journaling, playing a musical instrument, or singing, with a trend for higher engagement in song writing. Individual differences were also evident in that equal numbers of students gave positive and negative comments related to their well-being during the pandemic. The individual differences uncovered here suggest that having a variety of proactive interventions would likely reach more students. Indeed, 52% indicated an interest in online group music therapy, 48% in art therapy and 40% in verbal therapy, despite music and art therapies being virtually non-existent on campuses. In sum, the findings highlight the importance of choice in extra-curricular activities and therapies that support well-being.

Inferior Auditory Time Perception in Children With Motor Difficulties.

Accurate time perception is crucial for hearing (speech, music) and action (walking, catching). Motor brain regions are recruited during auditory time perception. Therefore, the hypothesis was tested that children (age 6-7) at risk for developmental coordination disorder (rDCD), a neurodevelopmental disorder involving motor difficulties, would show nonmotor auditory time perception deficits. Psychophysical tasks confirmed that children with rDCD have poorer duration and rhythm perception than typically developing children (N = 47, d = 0.95-1.01). Electroencephalography showed delayed mismatch negativity or P3a event-related potential latency in response to duration or rhythm deviants, reflecting inefficient brain processing (N = 54, d = 0.71-0.95). These findings are among the first to characterize perceptual timing deficits in DCD, suggesting important theoretical and clinical implications.

Collective music listening: Movement energy is enhanced by groove and visual social cues.

The regularity of musical beat makes it a powerful stimulus promoting movement synchrony among people. Synchrony can increase interpersonal trust, affiliation, and cooperation. Musical pieces can be classified according to the quality of groove; the higher the groove, the more it induces the desire to move. We investigated questions related to collective music-listening among 33 participants in an experiment conducted in a naturalistic yet acoustically controlled setting of a research concert hall with motion tracking. First, does higher groove music induce (1) movement with more energy and (2) higher interpersonal movement coordination? Second, does visual social information manipulated by having eyes open or eyes closed also affect energy and coordination? Participants listened to pieces from four categories formed by crossing groove (high, low) with tempo (higher, lower). Their upper body movement was recorded via head markers. Self-reported ratings of grooviness, emotional valence, emotional intensity, and familiarity were collected after each song. A biomechanically motivated measure of movement energy increased with high-groove songs and was positively correlated with grooviness ratings, confirming the theoretically implied but less tested motor response to groove. Participants' ratings of emotional valence and emotional intensity correlated positively with movement energy, suggesting that movement energy relates to emotional engagement with music. Movement energy was higher in eyes-open trials, suggesting that seeing each other enhanced participants' responses, consistent with social facilitation or contagion. Furthermore, interpersonal coordination was higher both for the high-groove and eyes-open conditions, indicating that the social situation of collective music listening affects how music is experienced.