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Commentary: Embodied learning within embodied communities
(2022)Collaborative Embodied Performance: Ecologies of SkillThe four chapters in this section take us from sturdy gym mats where our authors learned to perfect strong and stable handstands or honed the aikido ideal of harmonising with an opponent, to deep below the water’s surface, where breath holds became successively, achingly longer, and finally into the realm of the seemingly surreal, where artificial neural networks became musical collaborators. The authors shared authoritative and ...Book Chapter -
Embodying Expertise as a Performer and Perceiver
(2020)The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill and ExpertiseWhen watching another person perform a highly skilled action, whether an Olympic diver executing a series of complex twists and somersaults or a professional chef tossing and stretching a ball of dough into a flawless pizza base, we are witnessing the outcome of what has likely been many hours of dedicated training, practice and trial and error learning. We are also observing the (highly refined) result of the human brain’s ability to ...Book Chapter -
Observing and Learning Complex Actions: On the Example of Guitar Playing
(2018)Handbook of Human MotionWith very little effort or thought, we can understand the goals and intentions of other people we encounter in our daily lives through watching their movements. In this chapter, we discuss the action observation network (AON), which is thought to be a key player in linking action perception, production, and under standing. We focus on two prominent theories of AON function and detail how different kinds of experience (namely, physical ...Book Chapter -
Neurodevelopmental perspectives on dance learning: Insights from early adolescence and young adulthood
(2018)Progress in Brain Research ~ The Arts and The BrainStudies investigating human motor learning and movement perception have shown that similar sensorimotor brain regions are engaged when we observe or perform action sequences. However, the way these networks enable translation of complex observed actions into motor commands—such as in the context of dance—remains poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that the ability to encode specific visuospatial and kinematic movement properties ...Book Chapter -
The influence of sensorimotor experience on the aesthetic evaluation of dance across the life span
(2018)Progress in Brain Research ~ The Arts and The BrainUnderstanding how action perception, embodiment, and emotion interact is essential for advancing knowledge about how we perceive and interact with each other in a social world. One tool that has proved particularly useful in the past decade for exploring the relationship between perception, action, and affect is dance. Dance is, in its essence, a rich and multisensory art form that can be used to help answer not only basic questions about ...Book Chapter -
Learning Complex Actions Through Physical vs. Observational Experience: Implications and Applications for Dance and Other Performing Arts
(2017)Performing the Remembered Present: The Cognition of Memory in Dance, Theatre and MusicObserving a model is often a first step towards learning a new motor skill. When learning a complex new movement, such as a triple jump in figure skating or a challenging chord progression in a piano piece, an instructor can communicate precise visual, spatial and movement characteristics of an action simply through demonstration. The observer must then memorize this action before converting it into a motor command that can be accurately ...Book Chapter -
The Impact of Action Expertise on Shared Representations
(2016)Shared RepresentationsExpertise in the motor domain is something we recognize almost instantaneously in other people, whether a gymnast performing a double layout with a twist, a basketball player slam dunking the ball, a Super-G skier descending a steep course at 80 mph, or a dancer executing 11 consecutive spins on one leg without stopping. While we might be able to readily recognize expertise in others, the degree to which action experts can coordinate or ...Book Chapter -
Beautiful embodiment: The shaping of aesthetic preference by personal experience
(2015)Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain ~ Art, Aesthetics, and the BrainThe co-evolution of dance with the human race has fuelled a rich debate on the function of art and aesthetic experience, engaging artists, philosophers, and scientists. While dance shares features with other art forms, one unique attribute is that it is expressed (only) with the human body. Because of this, social scientists and neuroscientists are turning to dance to help answer questions of how the brain coordinates the body to perform ...Book Chapter -
Motor Control in Action: Using Dance to Explore the Intricate Choreography Between Action Perception and Production in the Human Brain
(2014)Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ~ Progress in Motor ControlWhen experienced dancers watch other dancers perform, they perceive the movement in a quantifiably different manner than nondancers. Is this simply a matter of dancers paying more attention and having greater interest in watching dance, or do quantifiable differences exist within the brains of skilled dancers compared to nondancers related to years of physical practice? Previous neurophysiological research offers insight into this question ...Book Chapter -
Observational learning of complex motor skills: Dance
(2012)Encyclopedia of the Sciences of LearningBook Chapter