From Mind Perception to Mental Connection: Synchrony as a Mechanism for Social Understanding

Wheatley, Thalia; Kang, Olivia; Parkinson, Carolyn; Looser, Christine E.

doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00450.x

Cited by 131 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 107 publications

(130 reference statements)

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“…One way to form and strengthen these social bonds may be through music: specifically the kind of temporal and affective entrainment that music evokes from infancy (63). In turn, these musical entrainment-based bonds may be the basis for Homo sapiens' uniquely flexible sociality (64). If this is the case, then our evolutionary understanding of music is not simply reducible to the capacity for entrainment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion

Sievers¹,

Polansky

Casey

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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187

195

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Music moves us. Its kinetic power is the foundation of human behaviors as diverse as dance, romance, lullabies, and the military march. Despite its significance, the music-movement relationship is poorly understood. We present an empirical method for testing whether music and movement share a common structure that affords equivalent and universal emotional expressions. Our method uses a computer program that can generate matching examples of music and movement from a single set of features: rate, jitter (regularity of rate), direction, step size, and dissonance/visual spikiness. We applied our method in two experiments, one in the United States and another in an isolated tribal village in Cambodia. These experiments revealed three things: (i) each emotion was represented by a unique combination of features, (ii) each combination expressed the same emotion in both music and movement, and (iii) this common structure between music and movement was evident within and across cultures.cross-cultural | cross-modal M usic moves us, literally. All human cultures dance to music and music's kinetic faculty is exploited in everything from military marches and political rallies to social gatherings and romance. This cross-modal relationship is so fundamental that in many languages the words for music and dance are often interchangeable, if not the same (1). We speak of music "moving" us and we describe emotions themselves with music and movement words like "bouncy" and "upbeat" (2). Despite its centrality to human experience, an explanation for the music-movement link has been elusive. Here we offer empirical evidence that sheds new light on this ancient marriage: music and movement share a dynamic structure.A shared structure is consistent with several findings from research with infants. It is now well established that very young infants-even neonates (3)-are predisposed to group metrically regular, auditory events similarly to adults (4, 5). Moreover, infants also infer meter from movement. In one study, 7-mo-old infants were bounced in duple or triple meter while listening to an ambiguous rhythm pattern (6). When hearing the same pattern later without movement, infants preferred the pattern with intensity (auditory) accents that matched the particular metric pattern at which they were previously bounced. Thus, the perception of a "beat," established by movement or by music, transfers across modalities. Infant preferences suggest that perceptual correspondences between music and movement, at least for beat perception, are predisposed and therefore likely universal. By definition, however, infant studies do not examine whether such predispositions survive into adulthood after protracted exposure to culture-specific influences. For this reason, adult cross-cultural research provides important complimentary evidence for universality.Previous research suggests that several musical features are universal. Most of these features are low-level structural properties, such as the use of regular rhythms, preference for small-intege...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion

Sievers¹,

Polansky

Casey

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

187

195

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“…Engaging in social encounters necessitates efficiently detecting targets in the environment capable of making meaningful mental connections (Heatherton, 2011; Wheatley et al, 2012). Across two studies, we showed that the motivation to connect with other people systematically biases this perceptual ability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Connection Modulates Perceptions of Animacy

et al. 2014

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Human survival depends on identifying targets potentially capable of engaging in meaningful social connection. Using sets of morphed images created from animate (human) and inanimate (doll) faces, we provide converging evidence from across two studies showing that the motivation to connect with other people systematically alters the interpretation of the physical features that signal that a face is alive. Specifically, in their efforts to find and connect with other social agents, individuals who feel socially disconnected actually lower their thresholds for what it means to be alive, consistently observing animacy when fewer definitively human cues are present. From an evolutionary perspective, overattributing animacy may be an adaptive strategy, allowing people to cast a wide net when identifying possible sources of social connection and maximize their opportunities to renew social relationships.

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“…In conversation, movement synchrony may serve as a low-level aid to realign speakers when higher level communication breaks down [157]. At the level of the brain, rhythmic coordination can be used to promote neural alignment, which could improve joint action, communication, neural efficiency and thus social bonding [158].…”

Section: (B) Social Consequences Of Interpersonal Coordinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rhythm in joint action: psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms for real-time interpersonal coordination

Keller

Novembre

Hove

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

355

322

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Human interaction often requires simultaneous precision and flexibility in the coordination of rhythmic behaviour between individuals engaged in joint activity, for example, playing a musical duet or dancing with a partner. This review article addresses the psychological processes and brain mechanisms that enable such rhythmic interpersonal coordination. First, an overview is given of research on the cognitive-motor processes that enable individuals to represent joint action goals and to anticipate, attend and adapt to other's actions in real time. Second, the neurophysiological mechanisms that underpin rhythmic interpersonal coordination are sought in studies of sensorimotor and cognitive processes that play a role in the representation and integration of self- and other-related actions within and between individuals' brains. Finally, relationships between social–psychological factors and rhythmic interpersonal coordination are considered from two perspectives, one concerning how social-cognitive tendencies (e.g. empathy) affect coordination, and the other concerning how coordination affects interpersonal affiliation, trust and prosocial behaviour. Our review highlights musical ensemble performance as an ecologically valid yet readily controlled domain for investigating rhythm in joint action.

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From Mind Perception to Mental Connection: Synchrony as a Mechanism for Social Understanding

Cited by 131 publications

References 107 publications

Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion

Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion

Social Connection Modulates Perceptions of Animacy

Rhythm in joint action: psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms for real-time interpersonal coordination

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