Visible Thought: Communication

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Visible Thought Communication the Performing
Arts An Experimental Psychologists View of
Contemporary Dance

• Kate StevensPsychology MARCS Auditory
  LaboratoriesUniversity of Western
  Sydneykj.stevens_at_uws.edu.au

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Outline

• Background
• Challenges of interdisciplinary research
• Methods and outcomes
• Communication in contemporary dance
• Conclusions

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1. Background

• a) Unspoken Knowledges (McKechnie Grove)
  creativity and choreographic cognition
• b) Conceiving Connections audience response to
  contemporary dance
• c) Intention and Serendipity the performer
  memory, improvisation

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Research Team

• Dance writers, academics (McKechnie, Grove)
• Research associates choreographers, dancers
• Experimental cognitive psychologist
• Musicologist (Malloch)

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A Definition

• In contemporary dance the major medium is
  movement, deliberately and systematically
  cultivated for its own sake, with the aim of
  achieving a work of art.

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2. Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research

• Search for common language and understanding
• Relevance of questions
• Variety of methods
• Variety of outcomes

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3. Examples of Methods Outcomes 19992005
Case Study Red Rain
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Case Study Approach

• Drew on video and journal notes
• 24-week chronology
• 2 analyses
• Musicology (SchenkerMalloch)
• Geneplore model of creativity
• Motion capture during refinement of new phrases
  of movement
• Pragmatics Cogn, 2003 Tanz im Kopf, 2005
  Thinking in Four Dimensions, 2005

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New Works
Red Rain
Quiescence
Fine Line Terrain
Quantum Leapers
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Measuring Audience Response

• Audience Response Tool (ART Renee Glass)
  open-ended and rating scale items affective,
  cognitive reactions tool reliable and valid

Portable Audience Response Facility (ARF)
measurement of on-line, continuous responses
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2D Continuous Recording
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1D Measures

• 1D enjoyment, or happiness, or complexity, or
  engagement
• Correlate time series with structure of work
• Measure consistency in type and intensity of
  response across audience

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4. Communication in Contemporary Dance

• Unspoken communication between
• Choreographer and dancers
• Dancers
• Dancers and audience
• Need for range of tools
• Dancers bodies repositories of art works

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Communication through Movement and Dance

• Direct perception of motion and force
• Mirror neurons and action recognition
• Implicit learning of movement vocabulary and
  grammar

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• Direct Perception
• Correlations between dynamics of velocity and
  force and rate of change of engagement and/or
  rate of change in emotional response?
• Mirror Neurons
• Evidence is accumulating that perception and
  action are coupled (e.g., Fadiga, et al., 1995)
• Motor repertoire used in performing action is
  used in perceiving someone else perform that
  action

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• Duncan If I could tell you what it is, I would
  not have danced it.
• Rambert When you looked at Pavlova you never
  thought I see this but I feel it I dance
  myself.

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Neural Mirroring and Prediction

• Calvo-Merino et al. (2004) - fMRI and neural
  mirroring Neural activity of expert dancers
  affected by whether or not they had performed the
  action
• Predictive forward model as shared mechanism that
  underpins perception and action

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Implicit Learning of Movement Vocabulary and
Grammar

• Movement lexicon within a work or series of works
• Movement lexicon phrases of movement with
  distinctive features of a choreographic tradition
  (e.g., leg work, particular athleticism, subtle
  movement of limb extremities)
• Grammar movement permissible combinations

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Implicit Learning of Movement Vocabulary and
Grammar

• Observers (and dancers) learn implicitly features
  of choreographers movement vocabulary and
  grammar
• Investigate assumption and mechanism using
  artificial grammar experiments of Reber Brooks
  Vokey

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Implicit Learning of Artificial Grammars

• Learn sequences generated by artificial grammar
  where certain forms permissible and others not
  vs. learning random sequences
• Then categorize new set of sequences - half
  generated by grammar and half ungrammatical
• 79 correct categorization after implicit
  learning of artificial grammar
• Is there vocab and/or grammar that characterises
  Australian tradition?

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Visible Thought Procedural and Declarative
Knowledge in Dance

• Suggested that some knowledge implicit
• Is there also evidence of declarative knowledge
  in dance?
• What role is played by procedural knowledge?

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Procedural and Declarative Knowledge

• Implicit knowledge of aesthetically appealing
  shapes, forms, motion trajectories
• Declarative knowledge of movement phrases of
  specific dance works
• Declare or make visible thoughts, ideas, images
  through patterns of movement and stillness of the
  body
• Also conscious recollection of thoughts, ideas,
  images, from their experience and emotional
  history
• During performance, may re-experience an episode
  in which a phrase pf movement became refined in
  the studio - not semantic or referential for the
  observer, but episodic, explicit quality for
  dancer

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Acquisition of Expert Skills

• Verbal (en)coding - not necessary, although
  language salient once learned (Damasio, 1999)
• Communication and transfer of knowledge through
  movement - show me what you just did (Grove,
  1999, 2005)
• Procedural knowledge may replace declarative or
  the two may co-exist - conscious knowledge with
  deliberate practice becomes automated

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5. Conclusions

• Creativity in dance is movement-based material
  evolves from exploration in the medium itself
• Source of idea word, concept, visual image,
  space, music, heard or felt rhythm, beat,
  texture, emotion
• Idea then made visible - expressed through
  movement subtleties, qualities, contrasts,
  physicality, stillness

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Communication in Dance

• Range of possible mechanisms
• Need variety of tools converging operations
  to observe, capture, quantify
• Considered communication between choreographer
  and dancers, between dancers and audience now
  focus on dancer improvisation and memory

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http//marcs.uws.edu.au/kj.stevens_at_uws.edu.au
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New Questions

• Is there a recognizable (and empirically
  verifiable) vocabulary and/or grammar in the
  Australian Bodenweiser tradition?
• Can we demonstrate implicit learning of dance
  grammar ( a la Reber) - CB vs gymnastics vs CD
  and transfer of training?
• What is the role of episodic memory in dance
  performance?
• What is the effect of different types of notation
  (declarative) knowledge on memory - compare
  different Laban techniques?

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Available Research Methods

• Classification task involving Bodenweiser and
  other materials as stimuli
• Artificial grammar scenarios/paradigms using
  movement sequences
• Computer-based memory experiments, e.g., episodic
  memory paradigm
• Interference paradigms to investigate form of
  knowledge and role of notation
• Interviews, questionnaires, case studies to
  investigate sensitive period and
  declarative/procedural systems
• Continuous ratings (affect or engagement) using
  portable Audience Response Facility (ARF) and
  PowerLab to measure physiological response (e.g.,
  GSR, breath rate)

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Ullmans Model of Declarative-Procedural Memory

• Lexical memory --gt declarative Grammar --gt
  procedural
• Dysfunction in one can lead to enhanced learning
  in other or learning in one may depress
  functionality of other
• Individual differences in relative dependence on
  the two systems

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Implications of Ullmans Model of
Declarative-Procedural Memory

• After puberty, grammatical/procedural system less
  available (attenuation increasing estrogen)
• Advantage of childhood, adolescent activity --
  cooperative and competitive activity in
  declarative and procedural systems into adulthood
• SLI not specific to language, e.g., problems with
  procedural memory impede sequencing of movement
  material underlain by complex rules of relations