Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences

Embodied responses to musical experience detected by human bio-feedback brain features in a geminoid augmented architecture

This paper presents the conceptual framework for a study of musical experience and the associated architecture centred on Human-Humanoid Interaction (HHI). On the grounds of the theoretical and experimental literature on the biological foundation of music, the grammar of music perception and the perception and feeling of emotions in music hearing, we argue that music cognition is specific and that it is realized by a cognitive capacity for music that consists of conceptual and affective constituents. We discuss the relationship between such constituents that enables understanding, that is extracting meaning from music at the different levels of the organization of sounds that are felt as bearers of affects and emotions. To account for the way such cognitive mechanisms are realized in music hearing and extended to movements and gestures we bring in the construct of tensions and of music experience as a cognitive frame. Finally, we describe the principled approach to the design and the architecture of a BCI-controlled robotic system that can be employed to map and specify the constituents of the cognitive capacity for music as well as to simulate their contribution to music meaning understanding in the context of music experience by displaying it through the Geminoid robot movements

The *subjectivity* of subjective experience - A representationalist analysis of the first-person perspective

This is a brief and accessible English summary of the "Self-model Theory of Subjectivity" (SMT), which is only available as German book in this archive. It introduces two new theoretical entities, the "phenomenal self-model" (PSM) and the "phenomenal model of the intentionality-relation" PMIR. A representationalist analysis of the phenomenal first-person persepctive is offered. This is a revised version, including two pictures