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Towards a sensorimotor aesthetics of performing art
Open accessAbstract
The field of neuroaesthetics attempts to identify the brain processes underlying aesthetic experience, including but not limited to beauty. Previous neuroaesthetic studies have focussed largely on paintings and music, while performing arts such as dance have been less studied. Nevertheless, increasing knowledge of the neural mechanisms that represent the bodies and actions of others, and which contribute to empathy, make a neuroaesthetics of dance timely. Here, we present the first neuroscientific study of aesthetic perception in the context of the performing arts. We investigated brain areas whose activity during passive viewing of dance stimuli was related to later, independent aesthetic evaluation of the same stimuli. Brain activity of six naïve male subjects was measured using fMRI, while they watched 24 dance movements, and performed an irrelevant task. In a later session, participants rated each movement along a set of established aesthetic dimensions. The ratings were used to identify brain regions that were more active when viewing moves that received high average ratings than moves that received low average ratings. This contrast revealed bilateral activity in the occipital cortices and in right premotor cortex. Our results suggest a possible role of visual and sensorimotor brain areas in an automatic aesthetic response to dance. This sensorimotor response may explain why dance is widely appreciated in so many human cultures.
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“Thus, for statistical purposes, our sample size is n = 19, which is comparable to previous infant studies of the sense of self in mPFC (Imafuku et al., 2014), fMRI studies of acting (Brown et al., 2019), and studies of aesthetic perception in performing arts (Calvo-Merino et al., 2008).”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Calvo-Merino et al., 2008
In the citing paper
“This builds on previous work that has been recorded from musicians (Omigie et al., 2015) and dancers (Calvo-Merino et al., 2008) extending performance-neuroscience to the domain of theater.”
From Exploring Theater Neuroscience: Using Wearable Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy to Measure the Sense of Self and Interpersonal Coordination in Professional Actors (2022) · cites this paper as Calvo-Merino et al., 2008
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Metadata
- Authors
- Calvo-Merino, B., Jola, C., Glaser, D. E., & Haggard, P.
- Affiliations
- City, University of London (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Consciousness and Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-09
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 911-922
- ISSN
- 1053-8100 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2074082098
- Cited by
- 274
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 3.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- Locations
- Consciousness and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- City Research Online (City University London) (submittedVersion)
- Open Research (University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Surrey Research Insight Open Access (The University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Leverhulme Trust
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Wellcome Trust
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Aesthetic Perception and Analysis
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Keywords
- neuroaesthetics, dance, aesthetic perception, sensorimotor reactions, passive viewing, aesthetic judgment, premotor cortex, occipital cortex, empathy, performing arts
- MeSH terms
- Art, Beauty, Brain, Dancing, Empathy, Esthetics, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Visual Perception
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