Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance: Local Grouping Structure in Basic Human Movement Perception

Abstract

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 inspired by Lerdahl and Jackendoff's ( 1983 ) approach to musical grouping. I spell out the basic perceptual dimensions at work in basic human movement perception, and on that basis, I propose six principles of change that determine group boundaries in dance (change of body part, orientation, level, direction, speed, quality). I experimentally test the relevance and interaction of these principles, and find that they are organized on a scale of relative strength. This experiment thus supports the hypothesis that grouping is a general cognitive capacity applying across domains and modalities, and shows how specific grouping principles are stated in relation to modality-specific and domain-specific dimensions. More generally, it takes a step toward the development of a generative theory of dance that should help extend the research avenue of comparing complex temporal cognitive activities across modalities (visual, auditory) and purposes (referential, non-referential), which so far involves spoken language, signed language and music.

Evolution and functions of human dance

“…As with music (and language), specific neural mechanisms underlie the perception and production of dance (Bläsing et al, 2012). The structure of human dance is complex (Charnavel, 2019), especially regarding the coordination of dance movements with others. Similarly, humans can identify structures in dance and use them in assessments of the dancer, although an assessor may not be aware of the causes of their assessments.…”

Rapid dissonant grunting, or, But why does music sound the way it does?

“…While signals communicate simple meanings (the shake of the rattlesnake's tail means you are in danger), music communicates complexes of meaning, supporting a semantics with a richness different from but rivaling that of language (Schlenker, 2019). This may also be true of dance (Charnavel, 2019;Patel-Grosz, Grosz, Kelkar, & Jensenius, 2018). What could possibly get us from the mechanistically and computationally simple raw material of reward-learning and signaling to the confoundingly meaningful playground of music-as-we-know it?…”

Effort reduction in articulation in sign languages and dance

“…For example, in basketball we don't generally care how someone moves down the court (that is, what form their movement assumes), so long as that ball goes into the hoop. 1 In contrast, we hypothesize that the human activity of dance should be more like language in this regard; if we are to identify a dance properly, the figures and phrases of the dance should remain recognizable [where segmentation of dance movement into segments or groups is variable, but includes sensory and experiential cues as well as prior knowledge of dance (Bläsing 2015;Charnavel 2019)], even in the face of pressure to reduce effort.…”