Assessing nurses' knowledge and confidence in adult sepsis: evidence from two hospitals in eastern China.

Research in music cognition has established the importance of simple timing models for understanding how performers achieve synchrony, with seminal contributions from Palmer, Schulze et al, Repp, Keller laying the groundwork for contemporary investigations. Simple sensorimotor synchronization tasks–, such as tapping along to auditory rhythms, have been central to this work, revealing that musicians generally exhibit greater timing accuracy, more stable entrainment, and more efficient phase correction mechanisms than non-musicians, reflecting well documented links between perceptual and motor processes in rhythmic coordination. We consider a simplified timing model paired with a tightly constrained music ensemble performance task as a link to studying more naturalistic live music performance. Recent research shows that microtiming and synchrony in music performance emerge from a complex interplay of sonic, perceptual, and contextual variables that are difficult to disentangle in naturalistic settings. For instance, Danielson and colleagues demonstrate that factors such as attack shape, timbre, and sound morphology systematically shift perceived beat placement, revealing how many interacting dimensions must be controlled before meaningful inferences about performer coordination can be drawn. This suggests potential for an approach based on a simplified model that isolates core timing mechanisms before attempting to interpret the richer, layered timing behaviors found in real ensemble performance (e.g. Danielson and colleagues). By starting with a constrained paradigm, researchers can build rigorously validated foundations that later support more ecological, complex studies, ultimately bridging controlled experimentation with the dynamic synchrony observed in live small group performance. Interpersonal synchronisation is an act of aligning one’s actions with other interacting persons in time, which is a common characteristic of many social interactions. Small ensemble performance of western classical music, such as string quartet (2 violins, viola and cello) chamber music, is a prime example of such social interaction. Each player adjusts their timing to coordinate with their partners and achieve joint expressive goals without external indication of a common timing metric (i.e. conductor). Musical scores are usually notated with standard tempi, such as for very fast and lively performances and for moderately slow music. However, actual tempi used during performances may depart from the score indication. For instance, players might adjust their own tempo intentionally to the dynamics in music (e.g. loudness, pitch) and to show their own interpretation of musical expressiveness (e.g. tempo changes marking the beginnings and ends of phrases). In this paper, we study how ensemble players coordinate in time to maintain group cohesion despite such individual variation in timing.