Does reflexive interaction enhance children’s musical improvisation? Child-computer interaction at the beginning stage of music learning

BackgroundSeveral scholars tackledthe issueof children’smusicalimprovisationfrom different learning/teaching perspectives and by usingdifferent methodologies. Weinvestigatedthis issuethroughthe reflexive interactionparadigm. This paradigm is based on the idea of letting users manipulate virtual copies of themselves, throughspecificsoftware calledInteractive Reflexive MusicalSystems(IRMS). AimsWe investigatedwhetherthe reflexive interactionusingthe IRMS influence the children’s skillfulness to improvise,at the beginning stageof musical learning.We used a particular IRMS, the MIROR-Impro, implemented in the MIROR project(European Commission-FP7), which is able to reply to the child playing a keyboard by mirroring(with repetitionsand variations)her/hisinputs.MethodThe study was conducted in aprimary public school, with 47 children, aged 6 to7.The experimentaldesignusedtheconvergence procedure, based onthree sample groups (one control group-CG -and two experimental groups-EG1 and EG2), allowingto verify if the MIROR-Impro and the reflexive interaction are necessaryand sufficientto improve the children's abilities to improvise, in solo and in duet.Independent variables:to play1) only the keyboard, 2) the keyboard with the MIROR-Improbut with not-reflexive reply, 3) the keyboard with the MIROR-Improwith reflexive reply. Dependent variables: children’s ability to improvise 1) in solo,and 2) in duet. Procedure:each child carried out5 weekly individual 12 minutes sessions. The CG played the complete package of independent variables(v1+v2+v3); EG1 playedthe keyboard and the keyboardwith the MIROR-Impro with not-reflexive reply (v1+v2); EG2 played only the keyboard withthe reflexive