PhD Course in Music Therapy Research November 2011
Music perception and cognition: Embodied action or information processing?
Erik Christensen
Background: It is the aim of my PhD project ”Music Therapy, Phenomenology, and Neuroscience”
to contribute to the theoretical foundations of music therapy by investigating two different
approaches to research in music: The theories and applications of music phenomenology, and the
theories and findings of research in the neurosciences and music.
It is my intention to investigate and discuss both research strategies in order to
contribute to an assessment of their relevance for music therapy.
Problem: Two opposed paradigms underlie theory and research in music psychology, cognitive
psychology, phenomenology, and neuroscience. Do they exclude each other? Is a reconciliation
possible and desirable? Or do they have to fight each other, until death them do part?
1) Cognition is information processing.
”In this chapter we shall examine ways in which pitch combinations are abstracted by the
perceptual system. First we shall enquire into the types of abstraction that give rise to the
perception of local features, such as intervals, chords, and pitch classes (…) Other low-level
abstractions result in the perception of global features, such as contour. Next we shall consider
how combinations of features are abstracted so as to give rise to perceptual equivalences and
similarities. We shall then examine how these higher-level abstractions are themselves combined
according to various rules.” (Deutsch 1999: 349)
2) Cognition is embodied action.
”Cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various
sensorimotor capacities (…) By using the term action we mean to emphasize once again that
sensory and motor processes, perception and action, are fundamentally inseparable in lived
cognition.” (Varela et al. 1991: 172-173)
“Vision, sound and action are parts of an integrated system; the sight of an object at a given
location, or the sound it produces, automatically triggers a “plan” for a specific action directed
toward that location. What is a “plan” to act? It is a simulated potential action.” (Gallese 2005: 27)
Elaboration: I will present further examples of argumentation and research which support or relate
to these two paradigms, primarily from phenomenological inquiry and research in music and the
neurosciences. Subsequently, I invite a
Discussion: On the basis of your experience and knowledge of music therapy and music therapy
research, can you suggest arguments and evidence for one of these paradigms - or both?
It is my wish to devote time for a fairly extended discussion, in order to make room for a variety of
insights, viewpoints, arguments and opinions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Deutsch, D. (1999) The Psychology of Music, 2nd. ed. New York: Academic Press.
Discussed in: Clarke, E. (2005) Ways of Listening. Oxford University Press, 11-16.
Gallese, V. (2005) ”Embodied simulation. From Neurons to Phenomenal Experience”. Phenomenology and the Cognitive
Sciences 4, 23-48.
Varela, F.J. et al. (1991) The Embodied Mind. Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press.