Neuronal bases of structural coherence in contemporary dance observation

The neuronal processes underlying dance observation have been the focus of an increasing number of brain imaging studies over the past decade. However, the existing literature mainly dealt with effects of motor and visual expertise, whereas the neural and cognitive mechanisms that underlie the interpretation of dance choreographies remained unexplored. Hence, much attention has been given to the Action Observation Network (AON) whereas the role of other potentially relevant neuro-cognitive mechanisms such as mentalizing (theory of mind) or language (narrative comprehension) in dance understanding is yet to be elucidated. We report the results of an fMRI study where the structural coherence of short contemporary dance choreographies was manipulated parametrically using the same taped movement material. Our participants were all trained dancers. The whole-brain analysis argues that the interpretation of structurally coherent dance phrases involves a subpart (Superior Parietal) of the AON as well as mentalizing regions in the dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex. An ROI analysis based on a similar study using linguistic materials (Pallier et al. 2011) suggests that structural processing in language and dance might share certain neural mechanisms

Quantifying dance in the audience's mind:a methodological quest for neuroscience research

Audience research in the domain of neuroscience has advanced our understanding of how spectators process what they see on stage. The focus of this kind of research is primarily on the functioning of the human brain and behaviour, irrespective of spectators’ lived experience. The widely used theoretical underpinning is the mirror neuron network, which manifests itself through a correspondence between the neuronal activities of a passively watching audience member with that of the performer, as if the spectator was internally mirroring the actions seen on stage. It thus links to ideas of a shared sensorimotor experience between spectator and performer, which has a long tradition in the performing arts discourse in terms of audiences’ kinaesthetic experience. Research showed that this experience is dependent on personal preferences, expertise and personality. One could thus argue that what is of particular interest is the spectacle that takes place in the audience’s mind. Accordingly, the cultural, formal and qualitative aspects of a performance constitute an important methodological factor. This chapter provides an overview of the conditions of scientific technologies employed and explains how these contradict principles of creative and cultural practices of the performing arts, which has led to shifts in methodological discussions.</p

Short- and Long-Term Changes in Attention, Memory and Brain Activity Following Exercise, Motor Learning, and Expertise

How humans perceive, embody, and execute actions has been an area of intense study in cognitive neuroscience, and these investigations shed light on how we adaptively learn from and interact with an ever-changing world. All of the knowledge associated with action, including sensorimotor representations, the words we use to describe them, and the memories that store this information, are represented in distributed brain regions that comprise knowledge schemas. With repeated practice or training, one can acquire a highly specialized motor repertoire that fosters even more efficient and adaptable behaviour to achieve peak performance. Using behavioural, EEG and fMRI approaches, I will present a series of investigations that evaluate the impact of short-term exercise and long-term dance practice on the development of expert knowledge schemas. In Chapters 2 and 3, I will demonstrate that activating one domain in the schema (e.g., action processing) will prime other domains (e.g., verbal attention and working memory) to induce translational performance improvements. Subsequent chapters will reveal how familiarity with a specific genre of dance influences behavioural (Chapter 3) and neurophysiological signatures of action perception, how these motor representations are coded in sensorimotor association areas (Chapters 4), and how they change with repeated practice and performance (Chapter 5). How these findings contribute to our model of expert knowledge schemas will be discussed in Chapter 6. These findings bear efficacy for the therapeutic application of exercise and dance programs to alleviate motor, cognitive and neurophysiological impairments in several clinical populations, including people with Parkinsons disease

"Consciousness". Selected Bibliography 1970 - 2001

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience (Metzinger 1995a, b). From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001

Danza y procesos cognitivos

La presente aportación es un extracto de los más recientes avances que desde la neurociencia dan luz al entendimiento de la danza, no solo del fenómeno cerebral relacionado con el aprendizaje y ejecución de esta, sino también del sustrato neural de su apreciación estética. Esta aportación está extraída de un trabajo de revisión sistemática en curso basado en la Declaración PRISMA. Han sido incluidos estudios que vinculan el aprendizaje de la danza, los métodos y prácticas coreográficas con habilidades cognitivas y procesos neurales con independencia de las características idiosincráticas de los participantes involucrados, su sexo, edad, etnia o estatus socioeconómico. La búsqueda según título y abstract obtuvo un total de 46 resultados. Tras aplicar los criterios de elegibilidad, se obtuvo un total de 39 artículos. Hoy en día son muchos los científicos que intentan entender cómo procesos cognitivos como el pensamiento, la resonancia y el aprendizaje se generan en el cerebro durante a el control de la acción motora y el aprendizaje de acciones motoras complejas. Neurocientíficos y neuropsicólogos ha comenzado a interesarse por la danza y por cómo las habilidades cognitivas de los bailarines son mejoradas o modificadas a través de su entrenamiento.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Pantomimic Conceptions of Language Origins

This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, 2nd edition, edited by A. Lock, C. Sinha, N. Gontier, due for publication in 2020.Could pantomime have been the key step in the evolutionary emergence of symbolic communication? Such a possibility has been consistently present in the intellectual reflection on language origins. What makes pantomime interesting from this perspective is its rich expressive potential, since it can convey open-ended, semantically universal and displaced meanings without relying on semiotic conventions, so that spontaneous pantomimes can be recognized as such and successfully interpreted. Definitions are important in classifying a particular scenario as “pantomimic”. In this chapter, we employ a ‘rich’ definition of pantomime: we describe it as bodily-mimetic communication which is non-conventional, improvised, performed with the whole body, holistic, communicatively and semantically complex. Based on this foundation, we review and evaluate pantomimic accounts of language origins, from the past to the present, and we particularly focus on the contemporary pantomime accounts given by Michael Arbib, Michael Tomasello, and Jordan Zlatev

Bind, Tether, and Transcend: Achieving Integration Through Extra-Therapeutic Dance

The purpose of this study is to examine the lived experience of achieving integration through the fine art form of dance, using a phenomenological method coupled with narrative and arts-based research. Research material illustrating the various manifestations of integration will be derived from interviews of ten professional dancers representing the non-dominant cultural discourse. Through the application of theoretical underpinnings of somatic psychology, interpersonal neurobiology, psychoneuroimmunology, and relational psychotherapy, this qualitative research seeks to articulate the esoteric healing forces derived from creative movement that fortifies self and fosters resilience within individuals. While dance might constitute an effective processing and coping mechanism for handling everyday stress, this may be especially true for those dealing with histories of childhood adversity and trauma. Healing, integrative properties of dance may aid the individual in navigating both current life challenges as well as coping with the struggle for re-integration in the aftermath of trauma. The electronic version of this dissertation is available free at Ohiolink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/et

Bind, Tether, and Transcend: Achieving Integration Through Extra-Therapeutic Dance

The purpose of this study is to examine the lived experience of achieving integration through the fine art form of dance, using a phenomenological method coupled with narrative and arts-based research. Research material illustrating the various manifestations of integration will be derived from interviews of ten professional dancers representing the non-dominant cultural discourse. Through the application of theoretical underpinnings of somatic psychology, interpersonal neurobiology, psychoneuroimmunology, and relational psychotherapy, this qualitative research seeks to articulate the esoteric healing forces derived from creative movement that fortifies self and fosters resilience within individuals. While dance might constitute an effective processing and coping mechanism for handling everyday stress, this may be especially true for those dealing with histories of childhood adversity and trauma. Healing, integrative properties of dance may aid the individual in navigating both current life challenges as well as coping with the struggle for re-integration in the aftermath of trauma. The electronic version of this dissertation is available free at Ohiolink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/et

The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram

This thesis identifies and analyses the key creative protocols in translocal performance practice, and ends with suggestions for new forms of transversal live and mediated performance practice, informed by theory. It argues that ontologies of emergence in dynamic systems nourish contemporary practice in the digital arts. Feedback in self-organised, recursive systems and organisms elicit change, and change transforms. The arguments trace concepts from chaos and complexity theory to virtual multiplicity, relationality, intuition and individuation (in the work of Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon, Massumi, and other process theorists). It then examines the intersection of methodologies in philosophy, science and art and the radical contingencies implicit in the technicity of real-time, collaborative composition. Simultaneous forces or tendencies such as perception/memory, content/ expression and instinct/intellect produce composites (experience, meaning, and intuition- respectively) that affect the sensation of interplay. The translocal event is itself a diagram - an interstice between the forces of the local and the global, between the tendencies of the individual and the collective. The translocal is a point of reference for exploring the distribution of affect, parameters of control and emergent aesthetics. Translocal interplay, enabled by digital technologies and network protocols, is ontogenetic and autopoietic; diagrammatic and synaesthetic; intuitive and transductive. KeyWorx is a software application developed for realtime, distributed, multimodal media processing. As a technological tool created by artists, KeyWorx supports this intuitive type of creative experience: a real-time, translocal “jamming” that transduces the lived experience of a “biogram,” a synaesthetic hinge-dimension. The emerging aesthetics are processual – intuitive, diagrammatic and transversal