Question 17- How Does Expertise Influence Aesthetic Perception Of Dance?

Question 1

Calvo-Merino et al (2005)

Answer 1

-Looked at action observation in professional dancers and non dancers to see if expertise of the movements changed the way the movements are perceived

-Results:
•Motor areas are more strongly activated if the dancers are watching moves they can perform compared to non dancers

Question 2

Calvo-Merino et al (2006)

Answer 2

-Looked at whether expert dancers perceive dance differently due to visual or motor representations by having male and female ballet dancers watch moves that they could perform and moves that they don’t perform but see regularly

-Results:
•Greater brain activity when dancers viewed the moves they could do
•Dancers understood and perceived the actions more through motor movements

Question 3

Kirsch et al (2015)

Answer 3

-Asked PPs to train for 4 days on dance sequences. Each day they physically rehearsed a set of sequences, watched a second set, listened to the music of the third set and took part inma fourth set untrained
•fMRI was taken before and after the training period
•Physical and affective rating were taken for each sequence

-Results:
•PPs preferred to watch sequences they had either danced or watched
•Brain responses involved in mediating the aesthetic response changed
~To begin with, regions activated were subcortical regions associated with dopaminergic reward processing
~After the 4 days, the posterior temporal regions involved in processing multisensory integration, emotion and biological motion were activated

-Although they weren’t experts, by comparing brain activity and progress each day it was able to give us insight as to how and why expertise influences the aesthetic perception of dance