14 DAY TRIAL // More often than not, an artist's appearance, i.e. how “cool” they seem to be, matters much more than their musical skills, a study published in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues.
Social psychologist Chia-Jung Tsay maintains that, even without their knowledge, most people rely heavily on visual cues when trying to determine the quality of a musical performance, Nature reports.
The psychologist theorizes that the visual cues people tend to pay close attention to while evaluating musical performances convey information concerning how passionate and motivated the musician is.
“People consistently report sound is the most important source of information in evaluating performance in music.”
“However the findings demonstrate people actually depend primarily on visual information when making judgments about music performance,” Chia-Jung Tsay sums up the outcome of this investigation.
Well, at least now we know what Lady Gaga's crazy outfits are all about. She's just trying to show us how passionate she is about what she does for a living.