Does the Body Shape the Musical Mind ?

In this paper, I propose that embodied cognition in music has two distinct levels: 1) the apparent corporeal articulation of music by performers and listeners, which reflects either a desire to make visible their emotional responses to the music or rhythmic entrainment, and 2) the principal (though concealed) level of transient muscular reactions to the main coding aspects in music: the tonal relationships arranged in time. This paper argues that the apparent corporeal articulation with regard to the entrainment effect and dance (Leman & Maes, 2014) is more related to the multimodal integration that is characteristic of attending to such a multidisciplinary performing art as opera and ballet than to purely musical content. I also present empirical data on the perception of tonal distances (Korsakova-Kreyn & Dowling, 2014) and suggest an explanation of why listeners' intuitive navigation in tonal and temporal space lies at the heart of emotional responses to music, including corporeal articulation. In addition, the paper touches on the research into temporality in music, such as memory constraints in the perception of tonal structures (Tillmann & Bigand, 2004). The main emphasis of this paper is on the principal two dimensions of music: tonal relationships and time. Understanding the primacy of these dimensions is important for defining music cognition and music in general. The paper also identifies the need for collaboration among various subdisciplines in musicology and the cognitive sciences so as to further the development of the nascent field of embodied cognition in music. KEYWORDS: music perception, embodied cognition, emotional processing in music Expressive distinctions are easily encoded by the listeners through the verbal labels, but they are practically untranslatable by bodily mediation, when body expression is induced by the musical stimulus. Frances and Bruchon-Schweitzer (1983) The concept of embodied cognition is based on the understanding that our emotions, memory, speech, and imagination are inseparable from the experiences of our bodies. To say it differently, a mind is shaped by the motor and somatosensory experience of the body that houses that mind. Music, a very special form of communication between humans, illustrates two levels of embodied cognition. The first, " surface " level is the influence of visible bodily movement on music perception and cognition. The second, " deep " level deals with melodic morphology. Our minds read melodic information by comparing differences in the perceived tonal stability of melodic elements. The sense of stability is directly related to a physical sensation of perceived tension, which means that melodic morphology is based on a highly primitive principle of perception that involves changes in somatic tension (Radchenko et al., 2015)—changes that most likely include transient actions of the musculature in response to tonal and temporal patterns. This is why tonal music presents what is probably the most obvious and holistic example of embodied cognition. SPEECH AND EMBODIED COGNITION The theory of embodied cognition postulates that sensory information and motor activity are essential for understanding the surrounding world and for developing the abilities that are important for abstract reasoning (Foglia & Wilson, 2013). Because both memory and speech include sensorimotor representations, our imagination relies on previously experienced gestures and movements (Wellsby &

These are interesting times for the Embodied Music Cognition (EMC) framework. Briefly summarized, EMC relies upon the hypothesis that embodied sensorimotor engagement is essential to both production and perception of music (Leman, 2008; Leman and Maes, 2014). This hypothesis, while suitable for accommodating different research methods used in empirical musicology (Godøy and Leman, 2010), may be regarded as inherently rather abstract. In the light of recent critical accounts on the foundations of embodied approaches to cognition as such (e.g., Goldinger et al., 2016, point out that premises like " perception is influenced by the body " are unacceptably vague), EMC hypothesis begs for further specification. Anticipating it, Leman and Maes (2014) suggested that the process of disambiguating what EMC hypothesis stands for, may take two forms. Firstly, the key would be to show that " embodiment plays a core role in an interconnected network of cognitive and emotive functions " and this network would be " further crucial in affect processing, conceptualization, tool use, and the entire array of functions needed to make sense of music " (Leman and Maes, 2014, p. 237). Second option, which as Leman and Maes (2014, p. 237) suggest " narrows down the perspective in order to find empirical evidence for a specific hypothesis, " would be to show that " the effect of action is essential to making sense of music. " In order to constructively contribute to the development of Leman and Maes' intuitions as to where EMC research should go, in what follows I will consider some challenges that may be of interests to both theoretically and empirically minded researchers. FROM METAPHORS TO VIABLE MODELS Leman and Maes' (2014, p. 237) challenge of establishing the " core role " that a body plays in the " network of cognitive and emotive functions " is as interesting as it is speculative. Consider Maes (2016) proposal for grounding EMC in terms of dynamic systems. Maes collects empirical evidence and radicalizes the (already vague) EMC basic principle by arguing that " music perception is a dynamic process firmly rooted in the natural disposition of sounds and the human auditory and motor system " (Maes, 2016, p. 1). The basic principle of EMC is " radicalized " by showing the ways in which it is consistent with recent research on predictive coding and dynamic systems in cognitive science. However, as researchers (e.g., Mole and Klein, 2010) convincingly argue, consistency itself is not enough to make a case in support of a given hypothesis. The key idea behind the so-called consistency fallacy: a given body of data cannot be stated as consistent with a particular theory (e.g., of EMC) just for the sake of consistency with that theory. For a body of data to provide evidence for the theory something else is needed: the data must not only be consistent with the hypothesis, they must also count against the contradiction of that hypothesis. It is unclear, however, how a particular set of empirical data [e.g., neuroscientific data suggesting that listening to music triggers the motor responses in the brain (Bangert and Altenmüller, 2003 quoted in Maes et al., 2014)] may count against the standard " brain-centered " approaches to music cognition (for discussion, see Matyja and Schiavio, 2013). The positive proposal here would be to focus upon establishing the basic requirements for what distinguishes the " embodied " aspects of

In this response to Leman and Maes's paper in this issue, we raise a couple of concerns about the authors' particular approach to embodied music cognition, drawing selectively on their other writings to enrich our interpretation of this target article, while pointing to a few of the many other legitimate research paths that can also fall under this label. We explore two underlying dichotomies implicit in the research programme adumbrated by Leman and Maes -cognition/embodiment and perception/performance -and implications for their theory of embodied music cognition. We then examine research that has focussed on the perspective of the music performer.

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, Vol 28(4), Dec 2018, 240-259, 2018

In this paper, I propose that embodied cognition in music has two distinct levels. The “surface” level relates to the apparent corporeal articulation such as the activated psychomotor program of a music performer, visible gestures in response to music, and rhythmic entrainment. The primary (though concealed) “deep” level of embodied cognition relates to the main coding aspects in music: the tonal relationships arranged in time. Music is made of combinations of a small number of basic melodic intervals that differ by their psychophysical characteristics, among which the level of tonal stability and consonant-dissonant dichotomy are the most important for the formation of tonal expectations that guide music perception; tonal expectations are at the heart of melodic intentionality and musical motion. The tonal/temporal relationships encode musical content that dictates the motor behavior of music performers. The proposed two-level model of embodied cognition connects core musicology with the data from studies in music perception and cognition as well as studies in affective neuroscience and musicianship-related brain plasticity. The paper identifies the need for collaboration among various subdisciplines in musicology and cognitive sciences in order to further the development of the nascent field of embodied cognition in music. The presented discourse relies on research in the tonal music of European tradition and it does not address either aleatoric music or the exotic musics of non-Western traditions. To make the proposed model of embodied cognition in music available for nonmusicians, the paper includes the basics of music theory.

Music is a poorly understood ability. Its strong power over humans, its origin and cognitive function, have been a mystery for a long time. Aristotle (1995) listed the power of music among the great unsolved problems. Darwin wrote (1871) that musical ability “must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which (man) is endowed.” Nature published a series of essays on music (Editorial, 2008). The authors of these essays agreed that “none... has yet been able to answer the fundamental question: why does music have such power over us?” (Ball, 2008). In this article I advocate a hypothesis that music has a specific cognitive function to embody abstract thoughts. This embodiment proceeds through musical emotions, special types of emotions that we may experience when listening to music and that connect abstract thoughts and mental representations to instinctual drives. The embodiment of abstract thoughts through music is a unique contribution of this article.

Empirical Musicology Review 9 (3/4), 2014, 247-253, 2014

In this response to Leman and Maes’s paper in this issue, we raise a couple of concerns about the authors’ particular approach to embodied music cognition, drawing selectively on their other writings to enrich our interpretation of this target article, while pointing to a few of the many other legitimate research paths that can also fall under this label. We explore two underlying dichotomies implicit in the research programme adumbrated by Leman and Maes – cognition/ embodiment and perception/ performance – and discuss the implications of these for their theory of embodied music cognition. We then examine research that has taken the perspective of the music performer into account in its examination of music performance.

The study of music cognition has been dominated by a largely disembodied conception of the mind. This so-called ‘cognitivist’ perspective treats mental activity in terms of abstract information-processing––where the world is represented in the mind via the computation of ‘sub-personal’ symbols; and where the mind-brain relationship is explained in terms of a collection of cognitive modules shaped by natural selection. Recent decades have seen an ecological-embodied paradigm emerge in cognitive science, as well as more plastic and interactive conceptions of the mind-brain and organism-environment relationships. These new perspectives offer a much broader understanding of meaning-making and the mind and are becoming increasingly influential in music cognition studies. The orthodox approach to the mind and its origins is examined; and its influence on music cognition research is discussed. Alternative embodied, developmental, ecological and bio-cultural perspectives on cognition and the musical mind are considered. The ‘enactive’ approach to embodied cognition is then offered as a theoretical framework that better accommodates these broader and more nuanced ways of understanding musical meaning. To conclude, the relevance of the enactive approach is considered for music education, performance and practice.

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain Vol. 28, No. 4, 240–259 , 2018

In this paper, I propose that embodied cognition in music has two distinct levels. The “surface” level relates to the apparent corporeal articulation such as the activated psychomotor program of a music performer, visible gestures in response to music, and rhythmic entrainment. The primary (though concealed) “deep” level of embodied cognition relates to the main coding aspects in music: the tonal relationships arranged in time. Music that we love – for example, a favorite melody – is made of combinations of a small number of basic melodic intervals that differ by their psychophysical characteristics, among which the level of tonal stability and consonant-dissonant dichotomy are the most important for the formation of tonal expectations that guide music perception. Listeners perceive music as a flow of tonal relationships arranged in time; the temporal and tonal dimensions are interwoven and constitute the tonal chronotope. The intuitive navigation in artistic tonal time-space relies on tonal expectations that are at the heart of melodic intentionality and musical motion. Melodic intentionality has its foundations in artfully sequenced tonal tension and release from tension. Significantly, perceived tonal tension is related to real physical tension. In a music listener, the patterns of perceived tonal tension most likely generate corresponding patterns of physical tension that contribute, along with other musical aspects, to forming a musical emotion, or the experience of psychological time in music. The tonal/temporal relationships encode musical content that dictates the motor behavior of music performers. The proposed two-level model of embodied cognition connects core musicology with the data from studies in music perception and cognition as well as studies in affective neuroscience and musicianship-related brain plasticity. The paper identifies the need for collaboration among various subdisciplines in musicology and cognitive sciences in order to further the development of the nascent field of embodied cognition in music. The presented discourse relies on research in the tonal music of European tradition and it does not address either aleatoric music or the exotic musics of non-Western traditions. To make the proposed model of embodied cognition in music available for nonmusicians, the paper includes the basics of music theory.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture, 2020

Music is a universal human activity. Its evolution and its value as a cognitive resource are starting to come into focus. This chapter endeavors to give readers a clearer sense of the adaptive aspects of music, as well as the underlying cognitive and neural structures. Special attention is given to the important emotional dimensions of music, and an evolutionary argument is made for thinking of music as a prelinguistic embodied form of cognition—a form that is still available to us as contemporary music creators and consumers.

> Upshot • The fact that both "consciousness" and "music" are quite elusive terms makes the attempt to explain the nature (or even the existence of) "musical consciousness" a compelling quest. The papers in this book tackle these problems in an engaging way, ranging from sociology of music to drug altered music cognition. Some also apply enactive and ecological approaches to music cognition, which makes the book an interesting read for constructivists.