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Know thy sound: perceiving self and others in musical contexts
Vassilis Sevdalis1, Peter E Keller2
1Institute of Psychology, German Sport University Cologne, Germany.
Acta Psychologica
|August 13, 2014
Summary
People can identify the agent of an action using auditory cues, especially in music. This supports embodied cognition theories linking perception, action, and self-awareness in action understanding.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Neuroscience
- Music Psychology
Background:
- Embodied cognition links higher cognitive functions to sensorimotor processes.
- Action simulation theory suggests observing actions activates an observer's motor system, particularly for self-produced actions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review empirical studies on recognizing an action's agent through auditory information, focusing on the music domain.
- To examine evidence supporting embodied cognition claims regarding self-produced actions in music perception.
Main Methods:
- Review of studies involving trained/untrained individuals generating and perceiving sounds.
- Analysis of agency attribution for self vs. other in immediate (online) and delayed (offline) designs.
- Categorization of studies based on auditory-motor information complexity: simple sounds, instrumental sequences, and audiovisual contexts.
Main Results:
- Auditory information, from simple sounds to complex musical performances, aids in identifying the action's agent.
- Evidence supports the role of sensorimotor processes in action understanding and agency judgments.
- The complexity of auditory-motor information influences the accuracy of agency recognition.
Conclusions:
- Findings support embodied cognition by demonstrating the link between auditory perception, action production, and agency attribution.
- Understanding action observation is facilitated by examining perceptual-motor processes in auditory contexts.
- Implications for action understanding research and practical applications in music are discussed.
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