The experience of watching dance: phenomenological-neuroscience duets

Jola, C, Ehrenberg, S and Reynolds, D (2011) The experience of watching dance: phenomenological-neuroscience duets Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 1 - 21. ISSN 1568-7759

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Abstract

This paper discusses possible correspondences between neuroscientific findings and phenomenologically informed methodologies in the investigation of kinesthetic empathy in watching dance. Interest in phenomenology has recently increased in cognitive science (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008) and dance scholars have recently contributed important new insights into the use of phenomenology in dance studies (e.g. Legrand and Ravn (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8(3):389–408, 2009); Parviainen (Dance Research Journal 34(1):11–26, 2002); Rothfield (Topoi 24:43–53, 2005)). In vision research, coherent neural mechanisms for perceptual phenomena were uncovered, thus supporting correlation of phenomenology and neurophysiology Spillmann (Vision Research 49(12):1507–1521, 2009). Correspondingly, correlating subjects’ neurophysiological data with qualitative responses has been proposed as a means to research the human brain in the study of consciousness (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008), with similar issues in clinical psychology Mishara (Current Opinion in Psychiatry 20(6):559–569, 2007) and biology Kosslyn et al. (American Psychologist 57:341–351, 2002). Yet the relationship between neuroscience and qualitative research informed by phenomenology remains problematic. How qualitative research normally handles subjective experiences is difficult to reconcile with standard statistical analysis of objective data. Recent technological developments in cognitive neuroscience have inspired a number of researchers to use more naturalistic stimuli, outside the laboratory environment, such as dance, thereby perhaps helping to open up the cognitive sciences to more phenomenologically informed approaches. A question central to our research, addressed here, is how the phenomenal experiences of a dance audience member, as accessed by qualitative research methods, can be related to underlying neurophysiological events. We outline below some methodological challenges encountered in relating audiences’ first-person accounts of watching live dance performance to neurophysiological evidence of their experiences.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, January 2011, DOI 10.1007/s11097-010-9191-x. The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com
Related URLs:	Publisher
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	01 Dec 2011 17:04
Last Modified:	23 Sep 2013 18:54
URI:	http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/id/eprint/27626

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