Volume 8 · Number 3 ·
Pages 351-357
Enactive Music Cognition: Background and Research Themes
Jakub Ryszard Matyja & Andrea Schiavio
Log in download the full text in PDF
Abstract
Context: The past few years have presented us with a growing amount of theoretical research (yet that is often based on neuroscientific developments) in the field of enactive music cognition. Problem: Current cognitivist and embodied approaches to music cognition suffer, in our opinion, from a too firm commitment to the explanatory role of mental representations in musical experience. This particular problem can be solved by adopting an enactive approach to music cognition. Method: We present and compare cognitivist, embodied and enactive approaches to music cognition and review the current research in enactive music cognition. Results: We find that, in general, the enactive approaches to human musicality are capable of explaining the basic relationship between a musical subject and a musical object according to a pre-conceptual and pre-linguistic form of understanding related to bodily motor expertise. This explanation does not rely on on sophisticated forms of representation. Implications: Proponents of enactive music cognition should, in our opinion, focus on providing a consistent explanation of the most basic level of musical understanding. Constructivist content: We hope to invite the constructivist community to engage with the discussions on the intersection between music and enactivism.
Key words: Music, cognition, embodiment, enactivism, musical understanding
Citation
Matyja J. R. & Schiavio A. (2013) Enactive music cognition: Background and research themes. Constructivist Foundations 8(3): 351-357. http://constructivist.info/8/3/351
Export article citation data: Plain Text · BibTex · EndNote · Reference Manager (RIS)
Similar articles
References
Acitores A. P. (2011) Towards a theory of proprioception as a bodily basis for consciousness in music. In: Clarke D. & Clarke E. (eds.) Music and consciousness: Philosophical, psychological, and cultural perspectives. Oxford University Press, Oxford: 215–231. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Carpenter A. (2008) Kant on the embodied cognition. Philosophy 36(1): 59–68. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Chomsky N. (1965) Cartesian linguistics. Harper and Row, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Clark A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford University Press, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Clarke D. & Clarke E. (eds.) (2011) Music and consciousness: Philosophical, psychological and cultural perspectives. Oxford University Press, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Clarke E. (2005) Ways of listening: An ecological approach to the perception of musical meaning. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
De Jaegher H. & Di Paolo E. (2007) Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6(4): 485–507. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
De Jaegher H. & Di Paolo E. (2008) Making sense in participation. An enactive approach to social cognition. In: Morganti F., Carassa A. & Riva G. (eds.) Enacting intersubjectivity: A cognitive and social perspective to the study of interactions. IOS Press, Amsterdam: 33–47. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
De Jaegher H. (2010) Enaction versus representation: An opinion piece. In: Fuchs T., Sattel H. & Henningsen P. (eds.) The embodied self: Dimensions, coherence and disorders. Schattauer, Stuttgart: 218–224. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
DeNora T. (2000) Music in everyday life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Dreyfus H. L. (2002) Intelligence without representation – Merleau-Ponty’s critique of mental representation. The relevance of phenomenology to scientific explanation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1(4): 367–383. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Fodor J. (1980) Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 63–73. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Fodor J. (1983) The modularity of the mind. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Froese T. (2009) Hume and the enactive approach to mind. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8(1): 95–133. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallagher S. (2007) Review of “Body language: Representation in action” by Mark Rowlands. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007.09.19. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23156-body-language-representation-in-action/
Gallagher S. (2011) Interpretations of embodied cognition. In: Tschacher W. & Bergomi C. (eds.) The implications of embodiment: Cognition and communication. Imprint Academic, Exeter: 59–71. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallagher S., Hutto D., Slaby J. & Cole J. (in press) The brain as part of an enactive system. Commentary to appear in Behavioral and Brain Science. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallese V. (2007) Before and below theory of mind: Embodied simulation and the neural correlates of social cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362: 659–669. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallese V. (2009) Motor abstraction: A neuroscientific account of how action goals and intentions are mapped and understood. Psychological Research 73: 486–498. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallese V., Fadiga L., Fogassi L. & Rizzolatti G. (1996) Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain 119: 593–609. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gallese V., Keysers C. & Rizzolatti G. (2004) A unifying view of the basis of social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8: 396–403. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gibbs R. (2005) Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge University Press, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gibson E. J. (2000) Where is the information for affordances? Ecological Psychology 12(1): 53–56. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gibson J. J. (1966) The senses considered as perceptual systems. Allen & Unwin, London. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gibson J. J. (1977) The theory of affordances. In: Shaw R. & Bransford J. (eds.) Perceiving, acting and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ: 67–82. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gibson J. J. (1979) The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Glasersfeld E. von (1988) The reluctance to change the way of thinking. Irish Journal of Psychology (9)1: 83–90. http://www.vonglasersfeld.com/111
Glasersfeld E. von (1995) Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning. Falmer Press, London. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Gruhn W. (2006) Music learning in schools: Perspectives of a new foundation for music teaching and learning. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 5(2): 2–27. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Helmholtz H. von (1863) Die Lehre von der Tonempfindungen als psychologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik. 7th edition. Olms, Hildensheim. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Hogg B. (2011) Enactive consciousness, intertextuality, and musical free improvisation: Deconstructing mythologies and finding connections. In: Clarke D. & Clarke E. (eds.) Music and consciousness: Philosophical, psychological, and cultural perspectives. Oxford University Press, Oxford: 79–94. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Hurley S. (1998) Consciousness in action. Harvard University Press, London. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Huron D. (2006) Sweet anticipation. Music and the psychology of expectation. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Hutto D. & Myin E. (2013) Radicalizing enactivism. MIT Press: Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Hutto D. (2009) Mental representation and consciousness. In: Banks W. P. (ed.) Encyclopedia of consciousness. Volume 2. Elsevier, Oxford: 19–32. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Iyer V. (2004) Improvisation, temporality and embodied experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11(3–4): 159–173. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Johnson M. (1987) The body in the mind. The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith A. (1992) Beyond modularity. MIT Press. Cambridge MA ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Kivy P. (2002) Introduction to a philosophy of music. Oxford University, Oxford. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Kohler E., Keysers C., Umiltà M. A., Fogassi L., Gallese V. & Rizzolatti G. (2002) Hearing sounds, understanding actions: Action representation in mirror neurons. Science 297: 846–848. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Krueger J. (2009) Enacting musical experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16.2–3: 98–123. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Krueger J. (2011) Doing things with music. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10(1): 1–22. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Lahav A., Salzman E. & Schlaug G. (2007) Action representation of sound: Audiomotor recognition network while listening to newly acquired actions. Journal of Neuroscience 27: 308–314. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Laske O. (1977) Music, memory and thought. University of Microfilms International, Ann Arbour MI. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Leman M. & Schneider A. (1997) Systematic, cognitive and historical approaches in musicology. In: Leman M. (ed.) Music, gestalt and computing. Springer, Berlin: 13–29. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Leman M. (2008) Embodied music cognition and mediation technology. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Lerdahl F. & Jackendoff R. (1983) A generative theory of tonal music. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
López Cano R. (2006) What kind of affordances are musical affordances? A semiotic approach. Paper presented at L’ascolto musicale: Condotte, pratiche, grammatiche. Terzo Simposio Internazionalle sulle Scienze del Linguaggio Musicale. Bologna 23–25 February 2006. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Matyja J. (2010) Embodied music cognition. MSc thesis in philosophy. University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Merleau-Ponty M. (1945) Phénoménologie de la perception. Gallimard, Paris. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Molnar-Szakacs I. & Overy K. (2006) Music and mirror neurons: From motion to emotion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 119: 593–609. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Monelle R. (1992) Linguistics and semiotics in music. Harwood Academic Publishers, Chur. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Neisser U. (1967) Cognitive psychology. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Neisser U. (1976) Cognition and reality: Principles and implications of cognitive psychology. W. H. Freeman, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Newell A. (1982) The knowledge level. Artifical Intelligence 18: 87–127. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Noë A. (2000) Experience and experiment in art. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (8–9): 123–135. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Nussbaum C. O. (2007) The musical representation: Meaning, ontology, and emotion. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Overy K. & Molnar-Szakacs I. (2009) Being together in time: Musical experience and the mirror neuron system. Music Perception 26(5): 489–504. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
O’Regan J. K. & Noë A. (2001) A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 939–973. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
O’Regan J. K., Myin E. & Noë A. (2004) Towards an analytics phenomenology: The concepts of bodiliness and grabbiness. In: Carsetti A. (ed.) Seeing, thinking and knowing. Kluwer, Dordecht: 103–114. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Parncutt R. (2007) Systematic musicology and the history and future of Western musical scholarship. Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies 1: 1–32. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Pelinski R. (2005) Embodiment and musical experience. Trans: Transcultural Music Review 9. http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a178/embodiment-and-musical-experience
Peretz I. & Coltheart M. (2003) Modularity of music processing. Nature Neuroscience 6(7): 688–691. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Piaget J. (1976) Piaget’s theory. In: Inhelder B. & Chipman H. (eds.) Piaget and his school. Springer, New York: 11–23. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Prinz J. J. (2006) Is the mind really modular? In: Stainton R. J. (ed.) Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Blackwell, Oxford: 22–36. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Purwins H., Perfecto H. Gratchen M., Hazan A., Marxer R. & Serra X. (2008) Computational models of music perception and cognition I: The perceptual and cognitive processing chain. Physics of Life Reviews 5: 151–168. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Reybrouck M. (2001) Biological roots of musical epistemology: Functional cycles, umwelt, and enactive listening. Semiotica 134: 599–633. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Reybrouck M. (2005) A biosemiotic and ecological approach to music cognition: Event perception between auditory listening and cognitive economy. Axiomates. An International Journal in Ontology and Cognitive Systems 15(2): 391–409. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Reybrouck M. (2005) Body, mind and music: Musical semantics between experiential cognition and cognitive economy. Trans: Transcultural Music Review 9. http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a180/body-mind-and-music-musical-semantics-between-experiential-cognition-and-cognitive-economy
Reybrouck M. (2012) Musical sense-making and the concept of affordance: An ecosemiotic and experiential approach. Biosemiotics 5(3): 391–409. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Rizzolatti G. & Craighero L. (2004) The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience 27: 169–192. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Rizzolatti G. & Luppino G. (2001) The cortical motor system. Neuron 31: 889–901. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Rizzolatti G. & Sinigaglia C. (2008), Mirrors in the brain. How our minds share actions and emotions. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Rizzolatti G., Fadiga L., Fogassi L. & Gallese V. (1997) The space around us. Science 277: 90–191. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Rowlands M. (2006) Sensorimotor activity. Psyche 12(1) http://www.theassc.org/files/assc/2628.pdf
Ruwet N. (1975) Théorie et méthodes dans les études musicales. Musique en Jeu 17: 11–35. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Schiavio A. (2012) Constituting the musical object. A neurophenomenological perspective on musical research. Teorema 13(3): 63–80. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Shapiro L. (2010) Embodied cognition. In: Margolis E., Samuels R. & Stich S. (eds.) Oxford handbook of philosophy and cognitive science. Oxford University Press, Oxford: PAGE RANGE. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Shapiro L. (2011) Embodied cognition. Routledge, New York. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Sinigaglia C. (2008) Enactive understanding and motor intentionality. In: Morganti F., Carassa A. & Riva G. (eds.) Enactive intersubjectivity: A cognitive and social perspective on the study of interation. IOS Press, Amsterdam: 17–32. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Sinigaglia C. (2008) Mirror neurons: This is the question. Journal of Consciousness Studies 15(10–11): 70–92 ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Stewart J., Gapenne O. & Di Paolo E. (eds.) (2010) Enaction: Towards a new paradigm for cognitive science. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Thompson E. (2005) Sensorimotor subjectivity and the enactive approach to experience. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4(4): 407–427. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Thompson E. (2007) Mind and life. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Tomasello M. (1999) The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard University press. Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Uttal W. R. (2003) The new phrenology: The limits of localizing cognitive processes in the brain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Varela F., Thompson E. & Rosch E. (1991) The embodied mind. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Wheeler M. (2005) Reconstructing the cognitive world. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ▸︎ Google︎ Scholar
Comments: 0
To stay informed about comments to this publication and post comments yourself, please log in first.