Dance, Perception, Aesthetic Experience and The Brain

Ever since I first saw a dance performance I have wondered why it is that I am sometimes both fascinated and touched by someone or a group of people moving about on a stage, in a studio or even on the street. At the same time I have wondered why it sometimes leaves me completely indifferent. This question I have tried to address by combining insights from cognitive neuroscience, psychology and aesthetics.

Summary

• The feelings we experience when watching dance are the product of a myriad of sensory, cognitive and emotional brain processes. They are not accidental but depend on the properties of the brain processes involved in the analysis of sensory stimuli and on the interaction of expectations, associations and personal preferences as laid down in the brain.

• In so far as sensory processing is concerned there is no difference between an audience watching the finished work and a choreographer watching a work in progress: Choreographers and dancer(s) will continue adjusting a work until every aspect has been fine-tuned to its desired perceptual and emotional effect.

• The feelings embedded in a work of art can be regarded as the product of an inverse function of the properties of the brain mechanisms that give rise to these feelings: y = f(x). x=f^-1(y)

• Humans have a special ability for recognizing human motion, which has been hypothesized to rely on the recruitment of brain structures associated with the control of movement.

• Watching a photo of an object or a person in motion activates motor areas in the brain.

• Watching dance may submerge the brain in motor imagery. When watching dance you may be effectively virtually dancing yourself.

• Mirror neurons are neurons that become active both when a person observes AND executes a certain movement. These neurons may therefore play a role in imitation, an important aspect of learning dance, and empathy, the ability to understand other people’s actions and intentions.

• As in other temporal arts, music and film, expectancy (anticipation) and its resolution play an important role in the emotional response to dance.

• According to the appraisal theory of interest two appraisals are key to interest in art: an appraisal of novelty and complexity and an appraisal of comprehensibility. People lose interest both when an object or event is incomprehensible and when it is too obvious and simple.

• Vilayanur Ramachandran and William Hirstein have proposed eight, as they claim universal, laws of aesthetic experience.
1. enhancement of features that deviate from average
2. grouping of related features
3. isolation of a particular visual clue
4. contrasting of segregated features
5. a dislike of unnatural perspectives
6. perceptual problem solving and ambiguity
7. metaphor
8. symmetry.

• The main law or aesthetic principle, according to Ramachandran and Hirstein, is what they call a peak-shift effect. By accentuating traits that are otherwise considered to be distinctive, perception can be intensified. Example: portrayal of women in Indian art, cartoons, manga and computer games such as Tombraider.

• Essence is a problematic concept (e.g. Wittgenstein "Philosophical Investigations" 65-69). Rather than saying that an artist emphasizes essential traits, it is better to say that an artist emphasizes some features, which become essential in the work.

• Forms and patterns may summon a chain of associations. Example: a dying swan or love and attraction.

• Beyond the Pleasure Principle: an artist, whether a choreographer, painter or director, can also deliberately choose to as it were "upset" the visual system or simply ignore how the work is perceived altogether. However in composing a work an artist will again try to create a perfect "stimulus". If the purpose is to disorient the observer then this is what guides the composition. If the purpose is neutrality as it is in some conceptual art than fonts, clothes, spaces, movements etc will be composed so as to erase any preference or perceptual bias on the part of the observer.

Future Issues

• Although attractive the mirror system hypothesis, does not account for the perception of duets and the movements of groups of people.

• If the observation of movement also activates some form of motor imagery, it may enhance the motor repertoire. After seeing a martial arts movie or a ballet you may now be able to imagine yourself performing the same moves.

Publications

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2008), Dance, Choreography and the Brain, in: Melcher, D. and Bacci, F. [eds.], Art and the Senses. Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2008), Can Dance Be Disgusting or Is It Forever Doomed to Aestheticism?, Culture Teatrali (forthcoming)

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2005), Dance Perception and the Brain, in: McKechnie, S. & Grove, R. [eds.], Thinking in Four Dimensions, Melbourne University Publishing.

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2005), Einige methodologische Bemerkungen zu einer künftigen Neurokritik des Tanzes, in: Fenger, J. and Birringer, J. Tanz im Kopf/Dance and Cognition Jahrbuch Tanzforschung 15.

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2004), Towards a neurocritique of dance, BalletTanz Yearbook.

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2004), ‘Some speculative hypotheses about the nature and perception of dance and choreography’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 11, 3/4 pp.79-110.

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2003), ‘The dancing brain’, Cerebrum 5 (2), pp. 19-34.

Hagendoorn, I.G. (2002), ‘Einige Hypothesen über das Wesen und die Praxis des Tanzes’, in Tanz Theorie Text, Klein, G. en Zipprich, Ch. (red.) Hamburg, LIT Verlag, pp. 429-444.

References

Blake, R. and Shiffrar, M. (2007), Perception of Human Motion. Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 58, 47-73.

Barrett, L., Mesquita, B., Ochsner, K.N. and Gross, J.J. (2007), The Experience of Emotion, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 58, 373-403

Rizzolatti G., Fogassi L. and Gallese V. (2006), Mirrors in the mind. Scientific American 295, 5, 54-61.

Rizzolatti G., Fogassi L., Gallese V. (2001), Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the understanding and imitation of action, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2: 661-670.

Blakemore, S.-J. and Decety, J. (2001), From the perception of action to the understanding of intention, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, 561-567.

Ramachandran, V.S. and Hirstein, W. (1999), The science of art: A neurological theory of aesthetic experience, Journal of Consciousness Studies 6, 15-51.

Calvo-Merino, B., Glaser, D.E. , Grezes, J., Passingham, R.E. and Haggard, P. (2005), Action observation and acquired motor skills: an fMRI study with expert dancers, Cerebral Cortex 15 (8), 1243-1249.

Cross ES, Hamilton AF and Grafton ST (2006), Building a motor simulation de novo: observation of dance by dancers. Neuroimage 31 (3): 1257-67. Confirms some of my hypotheses about watching dance and motor imagery.

Iacoboni, M, (2003), Understanding others: Imitation, language, empathy, in Perspectives on Imitation: From Cognitive Neuroscience to Social Science, ed. Hurley, S. and Chater, N. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Wolpert DM, Doya K & Kawato M (2003), A unifying computational framework for motor control and social interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 358: 593-602.

Janata, P. & Grafton, S.T. (2003), Swinging in the brain: shared neural substrates for behaviors related to sequencing and music. Nature Neuroscience 6:682-687.

Silvia, P. J. (2005). Cognitive appraisals and interest in visual art: Exploring an appraisal theory of aesthetic emotions. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 23, 119-133.

Adolphs R. (2003), Cognitive neuroscience of human social behaviour. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4 (3), 165-78.

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