MUSIC AND EMBODIED COGNITION

Taking a cognitive approach to musical meaning Arnie Cox explores embodied experiences of hearing music as those that move us both consciously and unconsciously In this pioneering study that draws on neuroscience and music theory phenomenology and cognitive science Cox advances his theory of the mimetic hypothesis the notion that a large part of our experience and understanding of music involves an embodied imitation in the listener of bodily motions and exertions that are involved in producing music Through an often unconscious imitation of action and sound we feel the music as it moves and grows With applications to tonal and posttonal Western classical music to Western vernacular music and to nonWestern music Cox39s work stands to expand the range of phenomena that can be explained by the role of sensory motor and affective aspects of human experience and cognition