PONE-D-23-19525Replicability of the sight-over-sound effect in the judgment of brass band competitions in JapanPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Samma,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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This is a very interesting study, and the reading, for most parts, was fast-paceded. I appreaciated the text; however, as I read through it, also I noticed some aspects that could be refined. Hope the authors find these comments, and all of the raised points, helpful in some way.

Abstract

Some sentences in the Abstract require a little bit of work to enhance clarity and flow. For example, sentences like "a crucial ...," "background: brass band...," or "that the dominance" can be rephrased. Also I think the authors can set more details into their sample (age SD) and the stats values in Abstract;

Introduction

- The section has clarity and a swift pace, but there are opportunities for additional information, (a) explain how the study builds upon past findings and addresses their limitations, (b) a concise overview of findings, supported by data and their specifics (e.g. you can calculate ORs or even just provide data from the studies), and (c) emphasise the relevance of your study;

- The second paragraph effectively illustrates previous findings but would benefit from offering more interpretations and explaining how these findings built the design or rationale;

- Also, in the third paragraph, place the issues to be investigated in a broader context, underlining their importance;

- Clarify the relevance and implications of studying the s-o-s-e. Why is this relevant? Authors need to place more value in their study; 

- Consider reframing 4-5s paragraphs to ensure smoother transitions and clarity;

- Explain how previous studies on AVP contribute to understanding the sight-over-sound effect;

- Consider exploring theoretical frameworks that can elucidate the influence of musical experience on AVs;

- Ensure logical coherence in the hypotheses, particularly in explaining how the sound-over-sight effect is 'dependent' on musical experience and its implications. Overall, the authorss need to provide what they expected;

Methods

- Please extend and detail your eligibility criteria.  For instance, include specific conditions or criteria for exclusion, with references to their assumptions;

- Describe the efforts made to ensure the representativeness of the sample for better generalisability. I understand this is not the main point of the text, but this could be really important for other researchers and readers;

- Address potential biases or limitations in the procedure, as these may impact the interpretation of results;

- Please avoid placing stats outcomes within this section;

- Actually, the authors could consider examine skewness and kurtosis as most important parameters to normality;

- Provide effect sizes and CIs (i.e. I think you can use MBESS or even the rcompanion for R);

Discussion

- Consider reframing paragraphs 2 and 3 to refine readability;

- Debate on stimulus control can be more concise;

- Please check "variations in performance level" and link to your main rationale;

- Consider extend the debate on theories and your findings;

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“K.H. is employed by the NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Japan. The remaining author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

S.F. has received a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists B and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B from JSPS and research grants from JST COI-NEXT and Keio University Academic Development Funds. S.F. has also received research support from no new folk studio Inc. and Odakyu Railway within the past three years.”

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: General Comments:

This study is well written and deals with an important topic. However, the rationales are weak to support the hypotheses and some of the findings are explained in a vague manner without evidence. This part should be improved before accepted for publication. Specific comments are as follows.

Specific Comments:

• Line 107: The ‘sound-over-sight effect’ seems to be an error.

• Line 108-111: I suggest further explaining the rationale for H1 and H2. Readers may wonder the specific reasoning behind why the sight-over-sound effect is not replicable in the judgement of Japanese brass band competitions when camera angles and music pieces are controlled and why the sight-over-sound effect is dependent on the evaluator’s musical experience. The authors provided a citation for each hypothesis but specifying those reasoning may improve the quality of this manuscript.

• Line 134: The word, ‘subdivide’, means dividing something that has already been divided. This may need to be edited.

• Fig 1: I suggest clarifying the award information within performance, set, and group in the figure. It is not easy to digest this figure.

• Line 300: The ‘sound-over-sight effect’ seems to be an error.

• Line 397-414: The results of 1-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank tests should be moved to Results section from Discussion.

• Line 428-439: The interpretation of significant results seem to be conjecture, being described without any prior findings. Please discuss this finding in reference to prior findings.

Reviewer #2: 1. General comments:

The authors present an interesting experimental study on limited replicability of the sight-over-sound effect in the judgment of Japanese brass band performances.

There are no major concerns, but significant improvements are expected on the following points:

* For the Introduction part: an update of the references for the main topic would be useful;

* For the Methods part: although the study is well-designed, some additional details are necessary, in particular for experimental groups and stimuli choice;

* For the Results part: a reorganization of their presentation (currently distributed in different parts of the manuscript) is necessary, as well as a few additional tests;

* For the Discussion part: results analysis is well documented, but would need to be deepened, in particular by adressing the nature of the audiovisual interactions in the judgement task and the potential limitations of the study.

The manuscript is generally well written, but there are still some corrections to be made.

In conclusion, although the results presented may be important for the scientific community working on sensory processing, substantial revision is required before the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

In addition, regarding data availability, the experimental stimuli used are not directly available (but only upon request to the corresponding author). Given PLoS One policy on the matter, I don't know if this will constitute an obstacle to the acceptance of the manuscript.

2. Major revisions:

For page and line numbers, I will refer to the Word document (unless otherwise specified).

2-1. Introduction:

* Page 3 and following: I suggest to update your references on audiovisual interactions in music experience (e.g.: Moura et al, PLoS One 2023; Moura et al, NPJ Sci Learn 2023; Nusseck et al, Front Psychol 2022; Rozé et al, Sci Rep 2020) and comment the findings of these studies.

* Page 5, lines 90-91: I suggest that you support your argument with the results of the work of Schneider and his colleagues (Schneider et al, Ann N Y Acad Sci, 2005).

2-2. Methods:

* Participants:

- Page 8, lines 139, 144 and 156: For BMs, could you explain the mismatch between numbers of participants: 55 (line 144) vs 105 (line 156), given their total number, 171 (line 139)?

- Page 8, lines 148-152: This section should be placed at the beginning of the Results part (“There was no significant difference in…”)

* Stimuli:

- Page 9, lines 169-170: I suggest to briefly explain why you have chosen two gold prize awarded brass band, rather than silver or bronze prize awarded ones. This choice could be regarded as “no optimal” for your protocol.

- Pages 9-10, lines 170-174: Could you specify the whole number of available pieces and brass bands (e.g.: “the 10 experimental sets were chosen among…”)?

- Pages 10, lines 174-175: To be clearer, could you briefly explain (either here or in the Fig 1 caption) the criteria for choosing the experimental sets (i.e.: for a given competition, why only certain musical pieces have been selected?)

* Procedure (page 11, lines 2016-207): Please briefly specify the type of randomization used.

2-3. Results:

* Page 13, lines 239-240: At the beginning of this section, please add a first subpart on intergroup comparisons for demographic and musical training characteristics (currently on page 8, lines 148-152)

* Judgment experiment:

- For ALLs (page 13, lines 241-246): Did you also assess a potential effect of participants' gender (see, for instance: Bouhuys et al, J Affect Disord 1995)?

- For BMs (page 13, lines 253-258): Did you also assess a potential effect of other musical experience (than brass practice) in the participants of this group?

* Additional analysis:

- For ALLS and the three experimental groups (BMs, NBMs and NMs), could you verify that there are no intragroup differences for the number of participants between the three experimental conditions (AO, VO and AV)?

- It would be interesting to provide intergroup comparisons for overall performance and according to conditions (AO, VO, AV).

2-4. Discussion:

* On the whole, the discussion regarding the results obtained is well structured, but I think it would be important to deepen their analysis, by addressing:

- the nature of the audiovisual interactions in the judgement task, e.g. trying to explain the absence of “synergy” between auditory and visual cues (AV condition), whatever the group;

- the potential limitations of your study, notably the factors which may have interfered with the results obtained, e.g.: (i) potential interactions between the duration of stimuli and the perceptiveness of auditory and visual cues, (ii) the assessment of only one type of music ensemble, (iii) the fact that around 30% of subjects of the BM group had other musical experiences than brass practice (which may have interfered with the results obtained), and (iv) the high within-group variability of musical experience in the BM and NBM groups, i.e.: ranges of duration of musical training, age of onset of musical training, duration of brass ensemble training, and age of onset brass ensemble training (see: Shenker et al, Brain Struct Funct 2022).

* I also have some questions about and suggestion for the 4 explanatory factors you mentioned:

- Variation in performance level and genre (page 18, lines 351-354): Regarding the findings of Chiba and colleagues, couldn't these disparities also be linked to intercultural differences in movements induced by musical type, between Western classical music and Japanese shamisen music?

- Difference between solo and group performances (page 19, lines 370-390): Additionally, you could also mention the type of performed movements, more static (spatially speaking) for brass bands than for other types of ensembles (string orchestra, for example).

- Evaluator’s musical experience:

. page 20, lines 395-413: This subpart (for the test results) should be placed in the Results part.

. page 20, lines 413-414: These findings could be put into perspective with possible differences in the intergroup comparisons depending on the experimental conditions AO, VO and AV (see above).

. page 21, 425-427: Perhaps you could introduce in this subpart the notion of mirror neuron system, with their differential activation depending on the degree of familiarity with the observed action, musical practice and level of expertise? (e.g.: Baumann et al, Brain Res 2007; Calvo-Merino et al, Cereb Cortex 2005; Petrini et al, Neuroimage 2011).

Additionally, could you also discus an alternative hypothesis that auditory cues based judgement for brass music may be more accurate for BMs than for NBMs?

2-5. Conclusion:

The conclusion should open on some perspectives for future research (e.g., additional studies,…).

3. Minor revisions:

3-1. Tittle page:

* Main tittle (lines 1-2): I’d suggest a more "committed" title, e.g.: “Partial replicability”, “Limited replicability” or “Non-replicability of…”.

* Running tittle (lines 5-6): Please consider a more concise running title, for example by deleting “Replicability of the”.

* Author Contributions (lines 17-20): Please, avoid initial capital letters for common nouns.

* Keywords (PDF document):

If they will be used for the referencing of the paper, I’d suggest adding “audiovisual interactions” and/or “multisensory integration”.

3-2. Introduction:

* Page 3, line 44: please, add “conditions” at the end of the line (“between the two conditions”).

* Page 3, line 60: please, use lowercase letter for “the effect” (“different stimuli: the effect was”).

* Pages 4-5, lines 66-95: I’d suggest you list the 3 issues in a single paragraph (without line breaks).

* Page 5, line 89: I’d suggest to use “professional musicians” instead of “individuals with musical experience”.

* Page 5, line 103: I’d suggest to add “in controlled conditions” at the end of the sentence.

3-3. Methods:

* Ethics Statement (page 7, line 123): I’d suggest to add “no possibility” (“thereby ensuring no possibility of association”).

* Participants:

- Pages 7-8, first paragraph: For this subpart, you should avoid redundant information between text and Table 1 (e.g., lines 139-143).

- Page 8-lines 144-146: This sentence does not seem to me to be understandable; I’d suggest to use “other than” instead of “excerpt”.

- Page 8, lines 154-160: I’d suggest to move this paragraph before the previous one (starting at line 144).

* Stimuli (page 9, lines 164-166): I’d suggest to rephrase this sentence by using a verb.

* Procedure (page 11, lines 202-204): It would have been interesting to propose the same type of questions after the judgment tasks, in order to carry out a pre-post-test comparison and to look for possible correlations with the experimental results.

* Statistical analysis (page 12, lines 226): In this case, “To asses” would be more appropriate than “To confirm”.

3-4. Results:

* Judgment experiment:

- For ALLs (page 13, lines 242-245): You should presented the results in the same order as for Figure 2.

- For NBMs (page 14, lines 267-270): You should presented the results in the same order as for Figure 4.

- For NMs (pages 14-15, lines 284-287): You should presented the results in the same order as for Figure 5.

3-5. Discussion:

* Page 16, lines 296-297: I’d suggest to add “in controlled conditions” at the end of this introductory sentence.

* Page 16, lines 297-298: Perhaps you should use “main” or primary”, rather than “initial” hypothesis.

* Page 18, lines 346-347: Only one quote should be sufficient for this sentence.

* Page 21, lines 435-438: I’d suggest to add “auditory” (“or to precisely identify crucial auditory or visual cues…”).

3-6 Ending section:

* Data Availability (page 23, lines 463-465): If possible, I think it would be relevant to provide a set of the experimental stimuli used (in the three conditions: AO, VO and AV), in the supporting information files, in order to help the reader to better figure out the protocol.

3-7. References:

* Page 25, lines 515-516: The Reference 17 should be completed (type, university, web link).

4. Figures:

4-1. Figure 1:

* Caption (page 6, lines 186-195): To be clearer, could you briefly explain (either here or in the Stimuli part) the criteria for choosing the experimental sets?

5. Supplementary information

For the S1 Figure caption (lines 25-26), please consider the alternative proposition: “These graphs respectively represent…”

6. Additional references:

Baumann S et al, A network for audio-motor coordination in skilled pianists and non-musicians, Brain Res 2007

Bouhuys AL et al, Induction of depressed and elated mood by music influences the perception of facial emotional expressions in healthy subjects, J Affect Disord 1995

Calvo-Merino B et al, Action observation and acquired motor skills: an FMRI study with expert dancers, Cereb Cortex 2005

Moura N et al, Knee flexion of saxophone players anticipates tonal context of music, NPJ Sci Learn 2023

Moura N et al, The impact of visual display of human motion on observers' perception of music performance, PLoS One 2023

Nusseck M et al, Associations Between Ancillary Body Movements and Acoustic Parameters of Pitch, Dynamics and Timbre in Clarinet Playing, Front Psychol 2022

Petrini K et al, Action expertise reduces brain activity for audiovisual matching actions: an fMRI study with expert drummers, Neuroimage 2011

Rozé J et al, Cellists' sound quality is shaped by their primary postural behavior, Sci Rep 2020

Schneider et al, Structural, functional, and perceptual differences in Heschl's gyrus and musical instrument preference, Ann N Y Acad Sci, 2005

Shenker JJ et al, Early musical training shapes cortico-cerebellar structural covariation, Brain Struct Funct 2022

Reviewer #3: Here, the authors explored the classic “sight over sound” effect using a large sample with a well-controlled and novel stimulus set. They find that the effect is not reliably replicated and suggest that this is likely due to using such well-controlled stimuli. They also demonstrate that the effect may be somewhat dependent on musical experience.

Overall, the manuscript is very well written and thoughtful. However, there are a few sections where the authors should add clarity as I found them difficult to understand: (1) The methods, (2) stimuli, and (3) participant sections. For example, while the authors provided a graphic, it is not immediately apparent how many trials participants do, the number of pieces that are possibly assigned (eg, do all participants see all pieces of music?), whether the correct answer is always the same piece of music (it appears that the winners always performed the piece “March..”, etc. On Page 8, lines 144-148, what is this sentence referring to, given the context? What is 55 referring to, and why do the numbers not seem to sum properly? Therefore, and perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but I’m unsure how participants could select a winner when there appears to be a winner for only one musical piece. Were participants always presented with this piece on each trial? Or are they simply supposed to pick whichever performance got the highest rating given the three they are comparing them to?

Since the study is conducted between-subjects, and participants appear to often be at chance levels of performance, it seems plausible that one condition is better than another simply because those participants are better at any given task and not just the particular condition they are in. Furthermore, could the lack of an effect be driven by floor performance? In other words, could the presence of an effect for NBMs be due to that group of participants being better, overall, at any task (since it is my understanding that the VO group for NBMs are a separate group of people than those in the AO condition)? This is why an orthogonal task, to detect baseline levels of performance of a particular group is important. Did the authors include a separate task to get at this potential mechanism?

Similar to combining all participants into an ALL group, could the authors look at each stimulus and see its average accuracy dependent on the modality (AO, VO, and AV). This could tell us whether the stimuli were driving some of the observed differences in accuracy (eg, between BM and NBM, for AO and VO respectively) and whether the stimuli are somewhat responsible for the sight over sound effect for NBMs. In short, could it be that the stimuli are driving the effect for NBMs instead of the purported differences in mental imagery described in the discussion? Similarly, could the “above chance performance” for both BMs and NBMs in AO and VO respectively be, alternatively, due to the stimuli themselves? And not due to any internal mechanism? All of this is relevant since it seems that participants only had one interaction with each stimulus, which could lead to a lack of appropriate measurement power per stimulus. In other words, it could be the case that if participants saw each sample three times that they would get it wrong on one, but right on the other two occasions, demonstrating an overall ability to detect the correct answer.

Also, on line 402, the authors state that p = .021 is non-significant. Are they using a separate alpha here?

The authors conclude that, while they fail to replicate the effect with their general sample, they are able to replicate it within the NBMs and thus, the effect depends on musicianship. But I’m a bit unsure of whether that conclusion is warranted. Since, are they implicitly suggesting that the previously observed sight-over-sound effects were somehow secretly driven by musicians? And, in particular, musicians who were not explicit experts in the sub-domain of musicianship used as stimuli in a particular experiment that did replicate the sight-over-sound effect? Basically, couldn’t their positive effect just be noise (ie, could this just be a false positive, Type I error)?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Dr Xavier PERROT

Reviewer #3: No

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<div>PONE-D-23-19525R1Sight-over-sound effect depends on evaluators’ musical experience: An examination using Japanese brass band competition recordingsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Samma,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

Thank you for your valuable submission. Please respond to all comments and highlight the changes in the ms. Ensure your rebuttal is clear and provide sufficient details so we can streamline. Wishing you success with the study.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 15 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Thiago P. Fernandes, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I do appreciate the authors’ thoughtful revision and responses to the comments. Introduction is now good to describe the gap in the current literature and provide rationale for the hypotheses. Revisions of other sections also has improved the quality of the manuscript. I have no other comments.

Reviewer #2: 1. General comments:

In this revised version of the manuscript, the authors have addressed almost all of the issues previously raised.

Notably, they improved the Introduction section, clarified the experimental procedure, reorganized the Results section, and strengthened the Discussion section.

Additionally, they provided intergroup comparisons (along with three additional figures) and discussed some limitations of their study.

Finally, they expanded the Supplementary Information section.

In all, the authors have adequately revised their manuscript which is now publishable in PLoS One, after some minor revisions.

2. Minor revisions:

For page and line numbers, I will refer to the Word document (unless otherwise specified).

2-1. Abstract:

- Page 1, lines 29, 31-33: For the indication of age, please, add “+/- SD” (average age +/- SD = …).

- Page 1, lines 31-33: You should delete the three "n= " at the beginning of the three parts in parentheses.

2-2. Methods:

- Pages 10-11, lines 220-223: The authors' response and Mehr et al's findings suggest that the differences in musical performance skills are basically more related to auditory information than to visual information. The choice of gold prize awarded brass bands only could have partially neutralized the effect of auditory information (almost equivalent levels between groups) in favor of visual information. In this condition, visual information could have become the main cue for achieving the national selection.

- Page 11, lines 241-244: Please clarify whether or not you used the: "Evenly Present Elements" option?

- Page 13, line 273: Please use “Fig. 1” (instead of Figure 1) and reconsider the title (eg : Overview of the Judgment Experiment Procedure). Furthermore, the first sentence is redundant with the title.

2-3. Results:

* Group comparisons by conditions:

- Page 19, lines 398-401: I suggest you rephrase this sentence:

“The percentage of correct responses was: X (median = ...) for BMS, Y (median = ...) for NBMS and Z (median = ...) for NMs.”

- Page 19, lines 413-416: I suggest you rephrase this sentence:

“The percentage of correct responses was: X (median = ...) for BMS, Y (median = ...) for NBMS and Z (median = ...) for NMs.”

- Page 20, lines 430-433: I suggest you rephrase this sentence:

“The percentage of correct responses was: X (median = ...) for BMS, Y (median = ...) for NBMS and Z (median = ...) for NMs.”

2-4. Discussion:

* Evaluator’s musical experience:

- Page 25, lines 548-556: An alternative explanation may be related to the choice of gold prize awarded brass bands only (see above, Comment on pages 10-11, lines 220-223): Subtle acoustic differences (auditory cues) across brass bands may have been noticeable only to the BMs.

- Page 25, lines 557-566: The results of these additional analyzes should be moved to the Results section, in order to only mention the absence of inter-subgroup differences in the Discussion section.

* Limitations:

- Pages 27-28, lines 615-625: An alternative explanation may be related to the choice of regional gold prize awarded brass bands (see above, Comment on pages 10-11, lines 220-223).

- Page 27, line 606: I suggest you to use "it would be important" rather than “it is important”

2-5. References:

- Page 32, line 729: There is a typing error for the reference 21 (“Colledge”).

2-6. Figures:

* Figure 1:

This figure helps clarify the experimental protocol used. However, for each condition, I suggest you shift the "Judgement" rectangle and the word "Response" to the right, so as to make the "Stimuli 3" rectangle more visible. Furthermore, to illustrate the randomization in order of presentation of stimuli, you should alternate the location of the qualified group across sets (in 1st, 2nd or 3rd position).

3. Supplementary information:

* Table S1: For the title, could add “for assessing the normality of data”.

* Supplementary Texts: I think there was a confusion (or an error) in the numbering of the additional texts: S1 Text is missing in the Supplementary Information document and S4 Text is missing in the revised manuscript (only mentioned in the Response to Reviewers). Please correct this point and then check the consistency of the numbering between the manuscript and the supplementary information.

* S1 Figure: The caption should be in normal character (line 26). Please, add a space between “among” and “brass” (line 27).

* S3 Text (S2 Text ?): The title should be in bold (line 29).

* S4 Text (S3 Text ?):

- For the rational, you should mentioned Bouhuys et al, 1995 (Bouhuys AL et al, Induction of depressed and elated mood by music influences the perception of facial emotional expressions in healthy subjects, J Affect Disord 1995)

- For the gender comparison, I suggested assessing the effect of gender (as independent variable) rather than the effect of each gender, on the observed results. If possible, I thank you for carrying out a new analysis, on the same model as the analysis of the two sub-groups of BMs.

- Lines 58 and 64: you should add “the” (among the three conditions)

* S3 Figure:

- The caption should be in normal character (lines 74-76). 26). Please, add a space between “among” and “brass” (line 27).

- Lines 74-75: Please add “according to gender” (for each participant, according to gender)

- Please explain the signification of the dagger mark for VO condition in female participants.

Dr Xavier PERROT, 2024/04/23

Reviewer #4: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript. I believe it is sound and suitable for publication after correcting minor changes.

Below, I provide questions that I believe are pertinent to improving the manuscript.

The introduction covers the justification for the study well, however, I believe the authors could make it more succinct and objective.

I suggest that the authors could describe the methodology better, for example by adding a topic on the location of the study.

there is confusion about the topic of methods and results. The methods should include information that was used in the methodology of the study, the results found after collection should appear in another topic.

I think it would be interesting to provide data characterising the sample for the different groups (e.g. mean and standard deviation for females and males in each group).

With regard to the evaluation procedures, participants could only watch the videos once and could not go back to revisit the stimuli. This can limit the accuracy of judgements, especially if participants are unfamiliar with the procedure.

Was a sample calculated? what were the eligibility criteria for the sample? what inclusion and exclusion criteria were adopted? Who was responsible for recruiting the sample? Make it clear whether the sample was carried out by convenience.

Using more robust tests (e.g. ANCOVA) could help to understand confounding variables, such as the imbalance between female and male gender in the groups analysed. Another suggestion would be to calculate effect sizes (e.g. eta square for Kruskal-Wallis, r for Wilcoxon) to quantify the magnitude of the differences observed between the experimental conditions and groups of participants.

I hope that my considerations will help to improve the final manuscript.

Sincerely.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: Yes:  Kyoung Shin Park

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Dr Xavier PERROT

Reviewer #4: No

**********

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While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

<div>PONE-D-23-19525R2Sight-over-sound effect depends on evaluators’ musical experience:

An examination using Japanese brass band competition recordingsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Samma,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

Thank you for your valuable submission.

1) Please double-check grammar (e.g. punctuation and wording);

2) Please double-check refs (e.g. abbreviations, page numbers, and sentence case need to be corrected);

3) Although the title is not concerning, I believe the authors could improve by focusing on the novelty and importance of the study. Objective phrasing, such as highlighting the interaction between musical experience and sensory judgement, would engage a broader audience. For example, using terms like 'auditory-visual' could improve clarity, or elaborating on how musical experience influences sensory perception or performance would be beneficial;

4) Consider refining the Abstract, particularly in terms of language and how the information is presented. The authors are strongly encouraged to make it more engaging, emphasising the novelty and relevance of the research;

- The introductory lines should be revised to highlight the importance of the s-o-s in performance evaluations;

- Consider making the methods and results subsections more distinct;

- Elaborate slightly on why the absence of this effect in brass band musicians and non-musicians is important;

- The abstract could more strongly highlight why this study fills an important gap in understanding multisensory integration in evaluative sensory (assessment?);

- Some phrasing could be simplified to make the Abstract more direct; 

- Additionally, strengthen the Abstract by reinforcing the importance of the findings and making the practical implications of the study more explicit;

5) Expand the discussion on how musical expertise may influence the sight-over-sound effect. Incorporating cognitive and perceptual theories could provide a deeper theoretical framework for Hypothesis 2, especially regarding how experts process auditory and visual cues differently; 

6) The transition between sections, such as from the summary of previous findings to the Introduction of the study, could be made smoother;

7)  Including more references to studies on the influence of visual expressiveness and non-verbal cues on performance judgements would strengthen the arguments;

8) More detail could be provided on how musical training might influence sensory integration in music performance. A brief discussion on perceptual training would also be of interest;

9) The Methods section is a little bit worrying. I'd highly encourage the authors to consider:

- A detailed justification for the chosen sample size is required. Please consider performing a power analysis to ensure the sample size is appropriate;

- More refs and details from prior studies that used similar sample size calculations are necessary;

-  Clarify how the bands were selected (e.g. randomly or based on performance level) and provide further details on the scoring and ranking system used in the competition;

- Differences of demographics - particularly gender -  need to be addressed in the analysis. Please clarify whether gender was included as a covariate or if a gender interaction analysis was conducted to ensure it did not influence the results;

- The reasons for grouping participants (BMs, NBMs, and NMs) need more explanation. Please explain why these cutoff points were used and consider adding more detailed information on groupings;

- While participant recruitment via social media and word-of-mouth is mentioned, there is no discussion of how recruitment bias was controlled. Please provide further elaboration;

- The choice of a 6-second stimulus length needs more explanation. Please explain how the stimuli were randomised across the three conditions (AO, VO, AV) to avoid bias. Also, give more details on how you kept the stimulus presentation consistent, especially since participants may have used different equipment;

10) The inclusion of effect sizes is commendable, but they could be discussed more explicitly in the context of their implications for the findings. This would offer a deeper understanding of the practical significance of the results;

11) The non-significant results for certain conditions (e.g., AO and AV for ALLs, BMs, and NMs) could use more explanation. Consider briefly discussing possible confounding factors or limits, like visual or auditory dominance, in this group;

12) The analysis shows no significant effect of musical experience outside brass bands. However, consider expanding on this. Is there research that explains why outside musical experience won't affect judgment accuracy in this case? Explaining this would strengthen your interpretation;

13) Some aspects for the Results:

- Ensure consistent rounding across all data. For example, round p = 0.021 to p = 0.02 or use three decimal places throughout for precision;

- Format the confidence intervals with commas to clearly separate the lower and upper bounds (e.g. [35.14, 43.71] instead of [35.14 43.71]);

- Present all medians in the same format, with or without decimals;

- Report effect sizes for each pairwise comparison (e.g., AO vs. VO) instead of only for the Kruskal-Wallis test;

- Clarify the main effect of musical experience, as zero degrees of freedom is unusual and may be a typo;

- In cases where the lower bound of an effect size CI is 0, it may indicate no effect. The effect size and its confidence intervals should be checked to ensure they align with the conclusion of significance;

- Consider using Hedges' g for pairwise comparisons and ω² for ANOVA to give more reliable effect size estimates;

14) Expand the discussion to include other visual factors, like performer interactions, that might influence the sight-over-sound effect, not just camera angles;

15) Provide more detailed explanations for NMs' performance. Consider alternatives, like relying on basic visual cues due to a lack of musical knowledge;

16) The study's use of only gold-prize brass bands is noted, but the explanation for why this neutralized auditory information is unconvincing. Expand this reasoning with more evidence or theoretical support;

17) Discuss how a within-subjects design might affect results, considering factors beyond learning effects, like order effects or familiarity with specific pieces;

18) Overall, the discussion needs a clearer structure. Differ sections on limitations, rationale research, and hypotheses separately. Some sections seem repetitive, and transitions are unclear. Strengthen claims about attentional focus, visual dominance, and auditory skills by adding more empirical evidence;

In addition, consider updating refs, including those by Zamm, Bigand, and others that explain how musical training affects motor-cortical plasticity, providing more modern insights than earlier work. Also, provide a clearer summary of the changes made to the ms.

Wishing you success with the study.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 21 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Thiago P. Fernandes, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Sight-over-sound effect depends on interaction between evaluators’ musical experience and auditory-visual integration:

An examination using Japanese brass band competition recordings

PONE-D-23-19525R3

Dear Dr. Samma,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager®  and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Thiago P. Fernandes, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thank you for your thoughtful and careful edits.

Wishing you success with the study.

Reviewers' comments: