FIGURE 1 - available via license: CC BY
Content may be subject to copyright.
| Gestalt law of similarity: visual perception. The white circles are perceived as forming groups distinct from the groups formed by the black circles.
Source publication
The general goal of this paper is to investigate the structure of our unconscious mental representation of dance: we do not perceive dance as an unanalyzed flow of movement, but we unconsciously create a mental representation regulated by structural principles. Specifically, this article examines local grouping principles in dance perception inspir...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... principles have been proposed by psychologists of the Gestalt tradition in the domain of static visual perception (Wertheimer, 1938, i.a.). For instance, according to the law of similarity, stimuli that physically resemble each other tend to be perceived as grouping together (Figure 1); according to the law of proximity, objects that are close to each other tend to be perceived as forming a group. These principles have been shown to apply in other domains and modalities. ...
Citations
... Dance represents a unique form of human expression where meaning creation through non-verbal channels achieves exceptional complexity and completeness (Dunagan, 2005;Krug, 2022). Contemporary cognitive science recognizes dance as a distinct pathway for social cognition with profound historical-cultural significance (Sevdalis & Keller, 2011;Bläsing et al., 2012;Charnavel, 2019). Dance practice generates several psychophysical and social benefits (Quiroga Murcia & Kreutz, 2012;Muro & Artero, 2017;Vecchi et al., 2022), which, in partner dances, increase proportionally with experience and frequency of engagement (Lakes et al., 2016). ...
This paper analyzes Carlos Saura’s film Tango through the theoretical lens of the Tie-Up Theory to explore how fictional narratives can serve as laboratories for investigating the embodied social cognition of romantic relationships. The study shows how dance, particularly tango, functions both as subject matter and cognitive metaphor in representing the complex dynamics of couple formation and maintenance. The film’s meta-representational structure, combining the creation of a dance performance with the exploration of actual relationships, reveals how cultural forms serve as cognitive scaffolds for understanding complex social dynamics. The study contributes to our understanding of how artistic representation can reveal typically implicit aspects of relationship cognition by demonstrating the value of integrating multidisciplinary perspectives of cognitive theory, psychology of mating, and cultural theory.
... In different dance genres, the characteristics of footwork also form its expressive value. However, the formation of this expressive value is not isolated, and its morphological and dynamic characteristics depend on the cultural background, life customs, and aesthetic pursuit of a dance genre [13][14][15]. ...
... The mathematical expressions of RotMap and LogMap are shown in Eqs. (13) and (14), respectively: ...
Methods that use motion capture data to analyze human behavior are highly interpretable and offer significant advantages in vision-based dance step analysis. In this study, we propose a fusion feature extraction method that describes the rotational information embedded in the skeleton and combines the advantages of single-skeleton feature extraction and Li group feature extraction methods for recognition. The feasibility and validity of the proposed model are verified by conducting recognition experiments on BVH data of classical dance steps performed by subjects. In the ablation experiments, the average accuracy of the classical dance step recognition model based on fused features for step movement recognition is improved by 3.01% and 1.86% compared with the neural network model and the Lie group network model, respectively. It has been proven that adding rotation information to skeletal features can effectively differentiate 3D motion trajectories in similar dance steps. Furthermore, the dance movement trajectories derived from this model are very clear and can be utilized to direct the correct joint point positions throughout the movement. The recognition accuracy of the fusion feature extraction-based recognition method for all seven classical dance basic foot positions is greater than 90%, which reflects the accuracy of the proposed machine vision model in recognizing classical dance steps.
... But recursivity is not unique to language: recursive structure can be found in musical skills (Lerdahl. & Jackendoff 1983;Lerdahl 2001;Patel 2003, Patel et al 2008; dancing skills (Charnavel 2019(Charnavel , 2023, in motor skills such as lifting (Esipova 2023), in tool use and food processing (Sterenly 2012). Here we briefly overview the recursive structure of three representative human skills: music, dancing, and lifting. ...
... Instead, combinatorial principles operate at multiple levels, such as in the formation of chords, chord progressions and keys in music (Patel et al 1998). Recent work on dancing has similarly unveiled its recursive structure (Charnavel 2016(Charnavel , 2019(Charnavel , 2023. Like musical sequences, dancing sequences come with a grouping structure, which in the ...
Is the ability to speak a language an acquired skill? Leading proponents of the generative approach to human language—notably Chomsky (2000) and Pinker (2003)—have argued that the thesis that language capacities are skills is hopelessly confused and at odds with a range of empirical evidence, which suggests that human language capacities are grounded in a biologically inherited set of language instincts or a Universal Grammar (UG). In this paper, we argue that resistance to the claim that human language capacities are skills has been fostered by naïve and implausible conceptions of the nature of skilled action. Correcting these misconceptions about the nature of skilled action breathes new life into the old idea that human language competences are particular kinds of skills and does so in a way that is fully consistent with appeals to the central importance of UG, broadly construed. More generally, we argue that by taking human language capacities to be skills, we capture what is right about the generative program while at the same time avoiding its most serious pitfalls.
... including letters, static body images (Norman and Price, 2012), apparent biological motion (Orgs et al., 2013), and dance (Charnavel, 2019). In other words, the aesthetic movement executed by a concrete performer will be preferred to a similar aesthetic motion executed by an abstract object. ...
Introduction
This research uses the production method to study aesthetic preference for sequences of human body postures. In two experiments, participants produced image sequences based on their aesthetic preferences, while we measured the visual aesthetic features displayed in the compositions.
Methods
In Experiment 1, participants created static image sequences based on their preferences. In Experiment 2, participants sorted images into apparent motion sequences they preferred to view.
Results
In Experiment 1, good continuation of successive bodies and body-like objects was the preferred order. In Experiment 2, participants preferred abstract images with local sequential symmetry and human body postures exhibiting global sequential symmetry.
Discussion
Our findings are compared to those of previous studies that employed the more widely used method of choice. Our experiments propose novel methods and conceptualizations for investigating aesthetic preferences for human body movement and other types of stimulus sequences.
... 5.2.1). Building on the latter, Charnavel (2019) proposes that dance is naturally perceived as hierarchically structured in ways that are reminiscent of musical grouping. Specifically, she argues with experimental means that some grouping preference rules proposed by Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983) for music have analogues in the grammar of dance. ...
We argue that formal linguistic theory, properly extended, can provide a unifying framework for diverse phenomena beyond traditional linguistic objects. We display applications to pictorial meanings, visual narratives, music, dance, animal communication, and, more abstractly, to logical and non-logical concepts in the ‘language of thought’ and reasoning. In many of these cases, a careful analysis reveals that classic linguistic notions are pervasive across these domains, such as for instance the constituency (or grouping) core principle of syntax, the use of logical variables (for object tracking), or the variety of inference types investigated in semantics/pragmatics. The aim of this overview is to show how the application of formal linguistic concepts and methodology to non-linguistic objects yields non-trivial insights, thus opening the possibility of a general, precise theory of signs. (An appendix, found in the online supplements to this article, surveys applications of Super Linguistics to animal communication.)
... However, hierarchical syntax models are not only adopted in the linguistic domain. Indeed, domains such as action sequences (Greenfield, Nelson, & Saltzman, 1972), dance (Charnavel, 2019), narrative (Van den Broek, 1988), or music (Keiler, 1978;Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983a) have also been described through the lenses of hierarchical syntactic models (for reviews, see Cohen, 2000;Fitch & Martins, 2014;Jackendoff, 2007). Yet, compared to the wealth of research in linguistics that shows the predictive and explanatory power of hierarchical syntax models for behaviour as well as neural activity, fewer studies have provided such evidence for non-linguistic stimuli. ...
Linguistic research showed that the depth of syntactic embedding is reflected in brain theta power. Here, we test whether this also extends to non-linguistic stimuli, specifically music. We used a hierarchical model of musical syntax to continuously quantify two types of expert-annotated harmonic dependencies throughout a piece of Western classical music: prolongation and preparation. Prolongations can roughly be understood as a musical analogue to linguistic coordination between constituents that share the same function (e.g., 'pizza' and 'pasta' in 'I ate pizza and pasta'). Preparation refers to the dependency between two harmonies whereby the first implies a resolution towards the second (e.g., dominant towards tonic; similar to how the adjective implies the presence of a noun in 'I like spicy...'). Source reconstructed MEG data of sixty-eight participants listening to the musical piece was then analysed. We used Bayesian Mixed Effects models to predict theta envelope in the brain, using the number of open prolongation and preparation dependencies as predictors whilst controlling for audio envelope. We observed that prolongation and preparation both carry independent and distinguishable predictive value for theta band fluctuation in key linguistic areas such as the Angular, Supramarginal, Superior Temporal and Heschl's Gyri, or their right-lateralised homologues, with preparation showing additional predictive value for areas associated with the reward system and prediction. Musical expertise further mediated these effects in language-related brain areas. Results show that predictions of precisely formalised music-theoretical models are reflected in the brain activity of listeners.
... While much of "super-linguistic" research still focuses on phenomena pertaining to communication, such as gesture or visual narratives, one direction of this research program applies the toolkit and the mindset of a linguist to systems of complex patterns of human behavior whose main goals have little to do with information transfer, such as music (Katz and Pesetsky, 2011;Lerdahl and Jackendoff, 1983;Schlenker, 2019, a.o.), non-narrative dance (Charnavel, 2019;Napoli and Liapis, 2019, a.o.), yoga (Hess and Napoli, 2008), or knitting (Fruehwald, 2016). ...
In this paper, I outline a grammar of lifting (i.e., resistance training) and compare it to that of language. I approach lifting as a system of generating complex meaning–form correspondences from regularized elements and describe the levels of mental representations and relationships between them that are involved in full command of this system. To be able to do so, I adopt a goal-based conception of meaning, which allows us to talk about mappings from complex goals to complex surface outputs in systems of intentional action, signaling and non-signaling, interactive and non-interactive, in a unified way, and show how it applies in lifting. I then proceed to argue that the grammar of lifting is architecturally very similar to that of language. First, I show that both involve stable (idiomatized/lexicalized) pairings of regularized forms with regularized meanings. Second, I argue that in both lifting and language, meaning–form mapping is mediated by syntax, which, crucially, operates on non-linearized hierarchical structures of abstract objects that include both content morphemes and functional morphemes. I conclude, following and expanding on some insights from prior literature and offering further evidence for them, that neither of these architectural phenomena (idiomatized meaning–form pairings and abstract syntax) is specific to language, with both of them likely emerging in skilled action that does not necessarily involve social interaction, due to considerations of repeatability and reusability of elements in new contexts.
... Signed languages implement prosodic groups visually using the proximity rule (mainly for manual signs) and possibly similarity rules (for non-manual signs; see Fenlon and Brentari, 2021 for an overview). Charnavel (2019Charnavel ( , 2022 and Patel-Grosz et al. (2018) argue that the structure of dance also makes use of Gestalt visual grouping. And Spelke (1994) explains why certain principles of spatial cognition and object recognition, some of which are related to proximity and similarity, are likely to give rise to ecologically valid inferences about objects in the world. ...
This paper reviews evidence concerning the nature of grouping in music and language and their interactions with other linguistic and musical systems. I present brief typological surveys of the relationship between constituency and acoustic parameters in language and music, drawing from a wide variety of languages and musical genres. The two domains both involve correspondence between auditory discontinuities and group boundaries, reflecting the Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity, as well as a nested, hierarchical organization of constituents. Typically, computational-level theories of musical grouping take the form of a function from acoustic properties through grouping representations to syntactic or interpretive constituents. Linguistic theories tend to be cast as functions in the opposite direction. This study argues that the difference in orientation is not grounded in principled differences in information flow between the two domains, and that reconceptualizing one or both theories allows for gains in analytical understanding. There are also obvious differences between musical and linguistic grouping. Grappling with those differences requires one to think in detail about modularity, information flow, levels of description, and the functional nature of cognitive domains.
... The very general goal of the present article is to adopt this approach for dance and thus inquire into the human capacity for dance perception (see Charnavel, 2016;2019;Patel-Grosz et al., 2018, 2022. This implies not only building a grammar of dance by determining its units, structure and meaning, but also comparing dance with other cognitive systems. ...
... (d) displays a change in length (duration) between the three half notes and the two quarter notes. The groups thus perceived are indicated below the notes using Charnavel's (2016Charnavel's ( , 2019 notation. ...
... Like before, I will here focus on rhythmical structure, and investigate how the differences between music and dance perception (esp. in modality) alter the formulation of the rhythmical principles that we examined earlier. Retaining the hypothesis that rhythm results from the interaction between grouping and meter, I will first examine the grouping structure of dance by reviewing principles identified in previous work (Charnavel, 2016(Charnavel, , 2019 and applying them to our case study. Then, I will investigate to what extent metrical structure also applies to dance and how its interaction with grouping gives rise to rhythmical properties. ...
The specific goal of the article is to investigate the principles governing the perception of rhythmic structure in dance and music—taken separately and together—on the basis of a case study. I take as a starting point Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s (A generative theory of tonal music. MIT Press, 1983) conception of musical rhythm as the interaction between grouping and meter, and I examine to what extent it can apply to dance. Then, I explore how the rhythmical structures of music and dance interact in a single event. I conclude that dance and music perception largely share the same abstract system, and the differences in the properties of their structure derives from the different (visual vs. auditory) modalities in which they are perceived; their modality difference also affects the perceived structure resulting from their combination in dance-music events. The exploration is guided by a detailed examination of the opening of Stravinsky’s Augurs of Spring (1913) as choreographed by Nijinsky (1913), Béjart (1970) and Bausch (1975). By comparing these minimal pairs of dance-music events, I adapt the formal methodology of linguistics to other cognitive systems. The general goal of the article is to shed further light on the organizational principles of mental representations by comparing several cognitive systems in order to distinguish between general cognitive properties and modality-specific or domain-specific properties.
... We can attempt to formalize the idea of a visual discontinuity inference on the basis of Charnavel's (2016Charnavel's ( , 2019 30 work, who applies Lerdahl and Lackendoff's (1983) notion of grouping to dance. Grouping is defined as a hierarchical segmentation into smaller groups/sections (Lerdahl & Jackendoff 1983:8-9); for Charnavel, a dance sequence that contains a jump might thus be segmented into at least three groups: the section before the jump, the jump, and the section after the jump. ...
... In our dance sequences, the extent to which the dancer's movement involves directionality is limited, and direction thus reduces to orientation (i.e. which direction the dancer is facing) for all relevant purposes. 30 We include both the reference to the published work (Charnavel 2019) and the earlier manuscript (Charnavel 2016), since each of the two texts contains material that is not included in the other text. ...
... Position p2 may be seen as a group boundary if the orientation of the body (part) in p1-p2 is different from the orientation of the body (part) in p2-p3. (Charnavel 2019:4, see also Charnavel 2016 Applying GPR2 to our dummy example in Figure 21, we infer that there must be a grouping boundary between P31 and P33, since the orientation of the dancer has changed drastically. Crucially, note that the dancer's position has also changed, and change of position may actually be the operational cue, as discussed throughout sections 2 and 3. ...
As formal theoretical linguistic methodology has matured, recent years have seen the advent of applying it to objects of study that transcend language, e.g., to the syntax and semantics of music (Lerdahl & Jackendoff 1983, Schlenker 2017a; see also Rebuschat et al. 2011). One of the aims of such extensions is to shed new light on how meaning is construed in a range of communicative systems. In this paper, we approach this goal by looking at narrative dance in the form of Bharatanatyam. We argue that a semantic approach to dance can be modeled closely after the formal semantics of visual narrative proposed by Abusch (2013, 2014, 2021). A central conclusion is that dance not only shares properties of other fundamentally human means of expression, such as visual narrative and music, but that it also exhibits similarities to sign languages and the gestures of non-signers (see, e.g., Schlenker 2020) in that it uses space to track individuals in a narrative and performatively portray the actions of those individuals. From the perspective of general human cognition, these conclusions corroborate the idea that linguistic investigations beyond language (see Patel-Grosz et al. forthcoming) can yield insights into the very nature of the human mind and of the communicative devices that it avails.
