Participant Registration
Am I eligible?
To take part you must:
- be an English-speaking adult (18+) pianist,
- be between moderately and extremely confident reading and playing sheet music and improvising over a backing track (both in E flat),
- have no history of brain injury, psychiatric disorder, neurological disease, or substance use disorder,
- have normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing,
- not be left handed,
- not have braids or hairstyles that prevents access to the whole scalp. This is because we need to place electrodes on the specific surface locations on the head.
What will I do?
1. When you arrive, we will fit an EEG head cap (like a swimming cap but cotton), which involves placing conductive gel (like hand soap) and electrodes in 64 diferent positions on your head. This is completely harmless and painless. This will take around 40-mins, and during this time, we can discuss any questions you have.
2. We will then set the speed, give you 10-mins of practice time, and run each task (piano improvisation, piano sight reading, and Tetris) one after another. Before and after each task, you will answer a questionnaire. Before and after the whole experiment, we will measure 5-mins of resting state data (where you sit still with your eyes closed).
3. On completion of the tasks, you can use our wash room to clean the conductive gel out of your hair. The researcher will then debrief the session and answer any questions you have.
Getting to Goldsmiths University
Research study
Neural Correlates of Creative vs. Accuracy Goals in Skilled Pianists
Department of Psychology,
Goldsmiths, University of London,
Lewisham Way,
London, SE14 6NW
Project partners:
A 2-2.5-hour laboratory-based study for adult (18+) pianists skilled in improvising and sight reading. The study aims to explore whether playing the piano with creativity and precision goals can help to switch between flow and clutch states. Participants will be reimbursed £60 and an extra £10 for each eligible participant they refer.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain activity will be measured during three tasks:
- Playing sheet music as accurately as you can
- Improvising on top of a prepared backing track
- Playing a game of Tetris
Participant Information
What is a flow state?
A mental state where you feel motivated to keep engaging in a challenging activity. It feels rewarding, your actions feel effortless, and your attention is completely absorbed in the present moment.
What is a clutch state?
An immersive mental state where you exert effort to reach a high-pressure goal. It feels rewarding and your attention is completely absorbed in the present moment.
What is Creative Empirical?
A research group from the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths University that studies creativity psychology.
Research purpose
We are interested in the neural signatures of flow and clutch states when pianists are placed under various cognitive demands and whether the brain states emanating from playing Tetris bare any resemblance to the states emanating from playing the piano. The study is a part of an MSc and PhD student project.
Risks and benefits
After completion, you’ll get a personalised results report that gives insights about your responses. You’ll be able to compare your responses to others anonymously. We anticipate reports being ready by late 2024. No risks are anticipated.
Your participation
Voluntary. You can withdraw your participation at any time without providing a reason
Data confidentiality
Responses are anonymised. Emails, if provided, are encrypted and stored separately from all other data. You can withdraw data within 14 days of participating by emailing the researchers. After 14 days, you can still ask for data to be deleted but since we plan on publishing it online, and since multiple researchers will be processing it, we cannot guarantee data will be deleted after the cut off.
Data handling complies with GDPR and the Goldsmiths data protection policy, which you can read more about here. This study has ethical approval from Goldsmiths' Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee and aligns with the Universities UK Research Integrity Concordat.
Data is stored in a Microsoft OneDrive cloud server, which is protected with two factor authentication on two password protected devices. Neural data is saved on a password protected USB drive.
Results
May be published on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) and in academic journals and dissertations. Your responses will never be personally identifiable
Contact Information
Queries and technical problems
Complaints
Research study
Neural Correlates of Creative vs. Accuracy Goals in Skilled Pianists
Research study
Neural Correlates of Creative vs. Accuracy Goals in Skilled Pianists
Department of Psychology,
Goldsmiths, University of London,
Lewisham Way,
London, SE14 6NW
Project partner:
A 2-2.5-hour laboratory-based study for adult (18+) pianists skilled in improvising and sight reading. The study aims to explore whether playing the piano with creativity and precision goals can help to switch between flow and clutch states. Participants will be reimbursed £60 and an extra £10 for each eligible participant they refer.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain activity will be measured during three tasks:
- Playing sheet music as accurately as you can
- Improvising on top of a prepared backing track
- Playing a game of Tetris
Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain activity will be measured during three tasks:
- Playing sheet music as accurately as you can
- Improvising on top of a prepared backing track
- Playing a game of Tetris
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a flow state?
A mental state where you feel motivated to keep engaging in a challenging activity. It feels rewarding, your actions feel effortless, and your attention is completely absorbed in the present moment.
What is a clutch state?
An immersive mental state where you exert effort to reach a high-pressure goal. It feels rewarding and your attention is completely absorbed in the present moment.
What is Creative Empirical?
A research group from the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths University that studies creativity psychology.
Research purpose
We are interested in the neural signatures of flow and clutch states when pianists are placed under various cognitive demands and whether the brain states emanating from playing Tetris bare any resemblance to the states emanating from playing the piano. The study is a part of an MSc and PhD student project.
Risks and benefits
After completion, you’ll get a personalised results report that gives insights about your responses. You’ll be able to compare your responses to others anonymously. We anticipate reports being ready by late 2024. No risks are anticipated.
Your participation
Voluntary. You can withdraw your participation at any time without providing a reason
Data confidentiality
Responses are anonymised. Emails, if provided, are encrypted and stored separately from all other data. You can withdraw data within 14 days of participating by emailing the researchers. After 14 days, you can still ask for data to be deleted but since we plan on publishing it online, and since multiple researchers will be processing it, we cannot guarantee data will be deleted after the cut off.
Data handling complies with GDPR and the Goldsmiths data protection policy, which you can read more about here. This study has ethical approval from Goldsmiths' Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee and aligns with the Universities UK Research Integrity Concordat.
Data is stored in a Microsoft OneDrive cloud server, which is protected with two factor authentication on two password protected devices. Neural data is saved on a password protected USB drive.
Results
May be published on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) and in academic journals and dissertations. Your responses will never be personally identifiable
Contact Information
Queries and technical problems
Complaints
Registration
Am I eligible?
To take part you must:
- be an English-speaking adult (18+) pianist,
- be between moderately and extremely confident reading and playing sheet music and improvising over a backing track (both in E flat),
- have no history of brain injury, psychiatric disorder, neurological disease, or substance use disorder,
- not be left handed,
- have normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing,
- not have braids or hairstyles that prevents access to the whole scalp. This is because we need to place electrodes on the specific surface locations on the head.
What will I do?
1. When you arrive, we will fit an EEG head cap (like a swimming cap but cotton), which involves placing conductive gel (like hand soap) and electrodes in 64 diferent positions on your head. This is completely harmless and painless. This will take around 40-mins, and during this time, we can discuss any questions you have.
2. We will then set the speed, give you 10-mins of practice time, and run each task (piano improvisation, piano sight reading, and Tetris) one after another. Before and after each task, you will answer a questionnaire. Before and after the whole experiment, we will measure 5-mins of resting state data (where you sit still with your eyes closed).
3. On completion of the tasks, you can use our wash room to clean the conductive gel out of your hair. The researcher will then debrief the session and answer any questions you have.