Congratulations to
Andrea Orlandi,
Martina Fanghella,
Quentin Moreau and
Matteo Candidi for being awarded a two-year grant from the BIAL foundation with the project "Beyond your own body: extending the bodily self to neuroaesthetics of interactions".
You can see the
short asbtract or the
long abstract.
Beyond your own body: extending the bodily self to the neuroaesthetics of interactions
Andrea Orlandi (PI), Martina Fanghella, Quentin Moreau, Matteo Candidi (coPI)
Neuroscienze Sociali e Cognitive (SCNL)
Department of Psychology, Sapienza
The project investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the aesthetic appreciation of dyadic postures inspired by contemporary dance. Electroencephalography (EEG) will assess the time courses of neural correlates of dyadic body processing. Overall, the current project will help increasing knowledge on social interactions’ processing and relative implication for aesthetic appraisal.
Beyond your own body: extending the bodily self to the neuroaesthetics of interactions
Andrea Orlandi (PI), Martina Fanghella, Quentin Moreau, Matteo Candidi (coPI)
Neuroscienze Sociali e Cognitive (SCNL)
Department of Psychology, Sapienza
The current project investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the aesthetic appreciation of dyadic postures inspired by contemporary dance. Electroencephalography (EEG) will assess the time courses and neural correlates of dyadic body processing. The project will be hosted by the Dept. of Psychology of Sapienza University of Rome and by the Social and Cognitive Neurosciences Laboratory (SCNL) headed by Prof. Salvatore Maria Aglioti.
For this proposal, we developed the Body Volume Interaction Task (BVIT) inspired by postmodern dance training to obtain dyadic abstract postures that fluctuate depending on visuospatial attributes (e.g., intersection). The BVIT will also be used as training for non-dancer participants to acquire experience with visuomotor aspects of interactions. First, we hypothesize a relationship between perceived interactivity and pleasantness of body dyads (study 1). Intersected body dyads are expected to be perceived as more interactive and aesthetically pleasant, possibly because they activate peripersonal space representations and bodily feelings associated with them.
Secondly, the role of visuomotor and somatosensory experience in modulating the two-body aesthetic appraisal will be investigated, combining the BVIT with a visuo-tactile integration task (study 2 and 3). We aim to disentangle the contribution of the observers’ visuomotor expertise (resonance hypothesis) in interactions’ processing from a possible plastic reorganization of their body schema (entanglement hypothesis). The latter hypothesis would suggest creating a joint body representation that would entail temporarily expanding the boundaries of one’s bodily self to incorporate the partners’ body (e.g., entanglement) to coordinate and synchronize their movements successfully.
Overall, the current project will help increasing knowledge on social interactions’ processing and relative implication for aesthetic appraisal.
