Introduction to Special Issue on Music and Embodied Cognition

Abstract

THIS issue, broken into two volumes (Vol. 9, No. 3-4, 2014), offers a unique contribution to contemporary research on embodied approaches to music perception and related phenomenon.  While the role of the body has often been acknowledged in a variety of disciplinary contexts, particularly in the domain of music performance, the 4E movement in cognitive science – i.e. interrelated paradigms that study cognitive processes as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended phenomenon - has pushed advances in previously underexplored areas.  Critically analyzing the benefits (and limits) of embodied approaches to the perception of music and related artistic practices is a crucial step for expanding the conceptual and empirical foundations of the 4E movement, as well as addressing related concerns for musicologists and music scholars.