Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Lourenco & Taylor: How Humans Understand Space



Stella Lourenco & Leslie Taylor
How Humans Understand Space


On October 29th, Stella Lourenco (Psychology) and Leslie Taylor (Theater Studies) led a fascinating discussion on the topic of how humans understand space. The speakers covered a broad array of material, ranging from the contemporary cognitive scientific study of spatial cognition to the history and nuance of stage design. Stella and Leslie effectively conveyed the deep complexity of the question at hand, emphasizing that we understand space in multifarious ways based on our various aims and activities. Indeed, both speakers underscored that adequately addressing this issue requires thinking in term of “frames of reference”—a multifaceted notion, in its own right.

The Cognitive Scientific Study of Spatial Cognition


In her portion of the presentation, Stella introduced the cognitive scientific study of spatial understanding, highlighting some central themes and current research. One area of controversy concerns the modularity of spatial understanding. As defined by Jerry Fodor, cognitive modules are hardwired systems involving domain-specific processes that are informationally encapsulated (i.e., cognitively impenetrable by information from outside domains). Fodor speculated that we possess at least several different modules, each dedicated to unique sensory tasks (e.g., visual perception). Stella presented research indicating that at least one aspect of spatial understanding—our capacity to reorient in space---may qualify as a modularized process. In one set of studies, an infant is placed in a rectangular room that has an identical hiding place in each of its four corners. The infant first observes an attractive object being placed in one corner, and the infant is then spun around. Researchers found that in trying to relocate the hidden object disoriented infants tend to rely on geometric data (i.e., the shape of the surrounding space), consistently looking in one of two geometrically identical places, the corner where the object was placed or the diagonal corner. This remained the case even when these geometrically identical corners were given different color markings; which might indicate that our tendency to reorient in space based on geometric information is cognitively impenetrable, a hallmark of modularized systems.

Stella outlined another recurring theme in the cognitive scientific study of spatial cognition: the important idea that human beings utilize “different frames of reference” or perspectives in conceptualizing space, which likely involve unique cognitive processes. For instance, a common distinction drawn in the literature contrasts an egocentric versus allocentric understanding of space. The former involves thinking about and experiencing space in relation to self, in terms of ‘front/back,’ ‘left/right,’ etc.; whereas the latter stance is oriented more towards the general environment, e.g., ‘north/south,’ measures of latitude/longitude, etc. As Stella noted, contemporary researchers typically hypothesize that these distinctive modes of spatial understanding are cognitively dissociable and follow unique developmental trajectories.

Highlighting a further level of complexity, Stella delineated differences in spatial cognition at both the group and individual level. For instance, at the group level, there is evidence of gender differences in direction-giving and route planning, as men appear to rely relatively more on geometric (e.g., distance and cardinal direction) versus non-geometric (e.g., landmarks) cues. At the individual level, research suggests that the way we egocentrically represent space—specifically, our intuitive sense of “near” versus “far”-- varies as a function of body size. As Stella noted, researchers in a variety of psychological fields have picked up on the idea that each of us has a sense of “near” space, referred to variously in the literature as the “body buffer zone,” “personal space,” “grasping space”, “peripersonal space,” etc. Researchers can study the size or range of this zone by graphing the results of a simple line bisection task, in which subjects are asked to identify the center of a line using a laser pointer from a variety of distances. In general, we tend to show a left-bias at near space, which shifts to a right-bias as we move out to far space. However, the distances at which these standard biases emerge vary from individual to individual, as some people appear to have a much larger sense of near space than others. Interestingly, it turns out that these are typically individuals with larger body sizes. Hence, it appears that this facet of egocentric spatial cognition varies individually on the basis of body size. Stella also described further research indicating that other individual factors, such as physical exertion or social-emotional disturbances, can alter the perceived size of near space.

Theatrical Frames of Reference


Leslie’s presentation emphasized a different sense of spatial “frames of reference.” As a stage designer, Leslie focused on the historical development of theatrical stages, tracing a movement from the open-space, outdoor productions of Ancient Greece to the more contained, indoor staging characteristic of contemporary theater. Leslie underscored that, throughout, a primary goal of theatrical design has been to find effective means of framing the action on stage for the audience: based on an enduring idea that theatrical performance should unfold against a backdrop. Much like a picture, a play needs a frame. The Greeks began by incorporating constructed designs on stage, such as wooden houses. During periods when theatrical stages were unavailable, designers utilized unique framing devices. Leslie memorably described, for instance, “Medieval slide-shows” in which productions were presented by a sequence of wagons and carriages. She further outlined the famous Shakespearian “O” theater style, and the gradual shift towards the illustrious indoor theaters of the Elizabethan Period. As Leslie noted, this movement from outdoor to indoor staging marked the birth of modern stage design, as new staging techniques, playing with perspective, lightning and illusion, were developed to enhance the action within a more intimate and tightly-controlled space. In recounting this historical development, Leslie animated a unique kind of spatial understanding, helping the audience to view space from the perspective of a stage designer: a distinctive approach focusing on the dynamic interplay between theatrical space and performance. Indeed, one of the points she made that really hit home was that while stages are created to accommodate performances, the converse is true as well. The kind of plays that are written in a given period are also inspired and constrained by the staging techniques of the time.

During the question and answer period of the lunch, Leslie revealed other interesting secrets of the trade. For instance, she noted that one general rule of stage design is to avoid symmetrical arrangements. She also discussed the different way that space is framed on film as compared to the stage. In general, space feels more constrained on film, as viewers witness the action from a particular perspective, based on the kind of shot (e.g., a close-up) that is utilized. In contrast, theatrical space is a more open medium, allowing for greater variation based on one’s position in the audience. Indeed, as film became more popular, playwrights and stage designers began to experimentally manipulate the space between actor and audience. As an example, Leslie described “environmental” plays—where actors move freely throughout the audience—which were part of the “experimental theater” movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. Finally, Leslie offered a brief glimpse into the mind of an actor, describing how the space on stage is viewed differently from this perspective. According to Leslie, rather than losing themselves in the surroundings, actors are usually keenly aware of the fact that they are on a set with props—adopting a more allocentric perspective than one might suspect.

Perspective-based Understanding


The interdisciplinary discussion led by Stella and Leslie covered a remarkable range of topics from a variety of perspectives. Stella focused on the cognitive scientific approach to understanding spatial cognition. As she noted, one guiding idea in this research program is the notion that we naturally utilize different frames of reference in our experience of space. For instance, there is the distinction between an egocentric versus an allocentric orientation. Of course, the theoretical stance of the cognitive scientist is yet another frame of reference that we can adopt in thinking about space. So, too, is the perspective assumed by stage designers, for whom spatial understanding takes on a unique significance, as Leslie artfully described. Here, the idea of a “frame of reference” takes on a double meaning: there is the general sense of perspective-based understanding referred to above, and the more specialized meaning from the world of theatrical production that Leslie characterized. Indeed, stage designers—who conscientiously work to frame the action on stage—might appreciate better than anyone the more general idea that our understanding of space varies based on perspective. The take-home lesson for me is that the complexity of human spatial cognition and experience demands a pluralistic style of analysis that works by incorporating insights from a variety of angles.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Rochat & Shore: The Origins of Human Sociality

  

Philippe Rochat & Bradd Shore
The Origins of Human Sociality


On Thursday, October 8th, Philippe Rochat (Psychology) and Bradd Shore (Anthropology) kicked off this year’s CMBC Lunch Discussion series, offering an engaging presentation concerning the psychological and cultural origins of human prosocial behavior. This presentation encapsulated the central questions and findings that arose from a CMBC sponsored graduate seminar that Philippe and Bradd co-taught in the spring ’09. The goal of this seminar was to reconsider some traditional questions in ethics and social theory from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Are human beings naturally selfish or altruistic? What are the cognitive developmental roots of prosocial behavior and a sense of fairness? How does culture impact the expression of these tendencies? Over the course of their presentation, Philippe and Bradd made a compelling case that conventional, ‘either-or’ approaches to the first question obscure the inherent ambiguity of our social-ethical existence: selfishness and altruism are inextricably connected, not diametrically opposed. We have natural proclivities in both directions, and it is not possible to offer an adequate explanation of one side without reference to the other.

Childhood Development of Sharing and Fairness


In his portion of the presentation, Philippe traced the development of sharing behaviors in children. The first video he showed depicted a 3 year old who was instructed by an experimenter to share candy with a puppet. As soon as the experimenter departed, the child voraciously devoured all the candy, later insisting that she shared. Philippe contrasted this case with a similar scenario involving a five year old that was presented with seven pieces of candy. The child systematically split the candy equally, one-by-one between himself and a puppet until stopping at the seventh and final piece. In an effort to be fair, the child left the final piece in the bowl rather than taking it for himself. The contrast between these two cases was striking, and Philippe noted that these results have been replicated cross-culturally. Based on this set of studies, it seems that selfishness may be ontogenetically prior to altruistic concern, at least in the context of sharing. However, Philippe argued that the relationship is more complex. For instance, he highlighted another study in which infants aged six to ten months showed a preference for puppets exhibiting sharing behaviors; which may be indicative of the development of altruistic sensitivity, as Philippe seemed to suggest, or merely an ego-centric appreciation for the usefulness of generous people. As the general theme of his presentation, Philippe emphasized that, although selfishness may be more manifest at younger ages, prosocial tendencies are present as well. Hence, we are neither “born selfish” nor “born altruistic.” Rather, both kinds of behaviors appear to be naturally developing.

Ritual Gift Exchange and the Empirical Social Contract


Picking up where Philippe left off, Bradd began his final portion of the lunch presentation raising this question: given the inherent tensions between the “social self” and self-interest, how can we explain the extension of altruistic behavior beyond in-group boundaries? He noted that a proclivity for xenophobic mistreatment of “the other” seems to be an unfortunate side-effect of our natural tendency towards in-group egalitarianism. What, then, accounts for the wider social cohesion within a given culture? Theorists working in the Social Contract Theory tradition, such as Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke, propose that this is achieved when self-interested individuals within a society collectively agree to limit individual liberty based on the recognition that social harmony will better promote individual welfare in the long term. How can this theory be grounded empirically? Bradd’s general thesis is that broader forms of altruism are an emergent property of ritual exchange. The Social Contract is not an event but rather a process unfolding through ritualized practices of gift-giving, e.g., marital exchange. Bradd underscored that the expression of altruistic practices will vary from culture to culture depending on the prevailing ideology. Atomistic versus collectivist cultures reflect unique modes of reconciling the inherent tensions between self and other.

What Constitutes “Altruistic Behavior?”


At the conclusion of Bradd and Philippe’s presentation, a member of the audience made an important observation that “altruism” in the context of this discussion referred to a much broader range of behaviors than the common usage would suggest. In everyday parlance, “altruism” typically refers to cases in which individuals sacrifice themselves for the sake of others without any self-regard. A prototypical example would be the soldier during battle that jumps on a grenade to save his/her compatriots. In contrast, as I understood them, Bradd and Philippe endorsed a more evolutionary-biological definition of altruism, requiring only that individuals sacrifice short-term gains in contexts of social exchange, broadly construed. As I have learned from my readings in this area, evolutionary theorists typically distinguish between biological and psychological altruism. The psychological level refers to the conscious motives that drive our behaviors. Psychologically, agents may perform prosocial acts for a variety of reasons. Psychological altruism encompasses cases where agents act primarily with the interest of others in mind. In contrast, I can perform a prosocial act for my own long-term benefit (e.g., I will share my candy with you now in the hopes that you will return this favor in the future). Importantly, as Robert Trivers’ famously underscored with his theory of reciprocal altruism, an act can be psychologically altruistic and biologically selfish (i.e., promote an individual’s genetic fitness, whether the individual knows this or not) at the same time. This may be what the presenters had in mind when they provocatively questioned whether humans are capable of “purely altruistic” acts.

Ethical Implications?


Philippe and Bradd’s presentation raises several interesting issues. They both argued that the traditional opposition between selfishness and altruism misrepresents the conflicted nature of our social existence. We have natural proclivities in both directions, and so it would be wrong to claim that “we are born” only one way or the other, selfish or altruistic. Nonetheless, at times, it seemed that both presenters were endorsing a view that selfishness is perhaps a more dominant pole or somehow primary, which may be a consequence of adopting a more evolutionary view of selfishness and altruism. For instance, Bradd underscored that the extension of altruistic concern beyond in-group boundaries is not a “natural process,” while Philippe raised concerns about our basic conceptions of altruism. Interestingly, Frans de Waal (Psychology & Yerkes), who I am working with on my dissertation that focuses on the naturalistic foundations of moral cognition, has offered a “floating pyramid model” of prosocial behavior to explain how selfishness may take precedence over altruistic tendencies, despite the fact that both are part of our evolved nature. According to this theory, we are hardwired such that our range of altruistic concern is constrained by our level of material comfort. In general, altruistic concern for out-group members is only possible--but certainly not guaranteed--when our basic survival needs are met. When resources are scarce, kin and close relations naturally take precedence. As this pressure is alleviated, a wider range of altruistic behavior can rise to the surface. Clearly, emphasizing that selfishness and altruism are both natural to human beings leaves ample room for further investigation. It seems that one of the chief challenges in this area is determining a useful definition of naturalness versus unnaturalness. Finally, although Bradd and Philippe did not directly address this issue, another important question raised by their presentation concerns the normative implications of this kind of descriptive study. In addressing the origins of selfishness and altruism, the presenters appeared to be explaining the naturalistic foundations of morality at the same time. The standard line in moral philosophy is that this kind of scientific theorizing has little bearing on the normative issue of how we ought to act--since “what is natural is not necessarily right.” However, I wonder if the following thesis holds as well: is it also the case that what is morally right must, in some sense, be natural? Can we even imagine an unnatural moral system?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Changing the Guard

It was my privilege to be the first blogger of the CMBC lunch series. Looking at the right margin of this blog -- much has been accomplished by the center in its first year. Especially considering that the lunch series was only part of this Emory initiative. The credits, of course, go to the presenters, who helped us to enjoy crossing interdisciplinary bridges, and to the Center's co-directors Bob McCauley and Laura Namy, who accomplished much in less than one academic year and with limited resources.

As for me, I have completed my degree, and while I continue, to my delight, to be a member of the Emory community, I am not a student anymore. It’s time for changing the guard. The new blogger is Jared Rothstein, a graduate student at the philosophy department.

I want to thank all who visited the blog. Above all I want to thank those who commented.

I look forward to the future activities of the center,
Shlomit

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Nygaard & Spitulnik: Language in Context



Lynne Nygaard & Debra Spitulnik
Language in Context


Lynne Nygaard (Psychology) and Debra Spitulnik (Anthropology) spoke in the last lunch of the Spring 2009 semester about language in context. Debra contextualized the meeting by identifying the various disciplines in the room. There were representatives from psychology, anthropology, linguistics, sociology, psychiatry, and philosophy. To exhibit the power of context, Lynne and Debra communicated for a short while as two giggling girlfriends in a sand box. This broke the ice and demonstrated how genres and styles are determined within a discursive context.

What does the question of context stand against?
Lynne contextualized the question within the history of the field, which traditionally held the model of a speaker-listener dyad. In this model, the speaker has an intention that translates into a physical signal. This signal is multilayered and structured and the listener unpacks the structured physical signal to understand it. It sounds good but alas, such an ideal dyad is nowhere to be found. For ecological validity we need to embed this dyad within a context; in fact within several contexts. Both Lynne, who studies phonetics and the biology of speech, and Debra, who studies society and culture, include context in their studies of language, and not as an epiphenomenon that can be left out of linguistic research. Not surprisingly, each has her own context.

Nested contexts:
Lynne proposed a stratified and nested structure of contexts: phonetic, lexical, syntactic, sentential, discursive, situational, social, and cultural. She discussed phonetic research that has shown that already in the basic level, the way in which we produce a vowel depends on its consonant neighbors. Debra, who resides at the other end of this context-ladder, is interested in the social and the cultural. But they both agreed with the 20th century Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, whom they cited:
There are no 'neutral' words and forms—words and forms that can belong to 'no-one'; language has been completely taken over, shot through with intentions and accents. For any individual consciousness living in it, language is not an abstract system of normative forms but rather a concrete heteroglot conception of the world. All words have a 'taste' of a profession, a genre…a particular person, a generation, an age group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of the contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life; all words and forms are populated by intentions.

“Heteroglot?”
I wondered too. This word, which many of us were unfamiliar with, encapsulates the complexity of the various levels of contexts -- how they (to use Debra’s language) “bleed” into each other -- and how, in addition, they are all contextualized within time. How while we are speaking in the “time Now” (as Lynne described the present) we are carrying a discourse with the past and the future.

Cognitive conundrums:
For Lynne the challenge is to understand how a biological system – yes, that’s us -- can encompass such complexity. She listed some specific hard questions: How this biological system can encompass simultaneously the linguistic and the communicative? How do the representations of language and its emergence in social, communicative contexts relate to each other? And maybe above all, how can we study it? The reductionist approach, which makes the research more manageable, has its own pitfalls. The contextualized investigation might be too complex to be productive.

Linguistic anthropology:
Debra’s is a humanistic inquiry. She is less interested in the mind/body framing of language than in its social and cultural contexts. Her questions are how do we map what gets activated in every specific situation and discourse? How do we account, for example, for the common use among young people of the expression "the fierce urgency of now"? In the Fall, they used it to connect up to the Obama campaign, and it had important echoes for them as the younger generation, but most used it without any knowledge that Obama's use of the phrase was a reactivation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s coinage (he used it in his 1963 'I Have a Dream speech').

Debra emphasized the two competencies included in the use of language, the linguistic and the social. The linguistic guides one in speaking correctly; the social guides in speaking appropriately. One has to be competent in both not only for speaking but also for understanding. An anecdote from Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer’s The Anthropology of Language made the point: Dr. Stirland, a biologist from England, visited Kansas State University, and had planned to continue to Toronto. She was overheard mentioning her plans by a Native American young man, who approached her in the parking lot and commented on how nice Toronto was, and that his family lived not too far, in Upstate New York, and that he missed them. It took a while before it dawned on Ottenheimer that the Native American young man was not narrating a family story but rather indirectly, as is customary and polite in his culture, was asking for a ride. “I miss my family” was correctly understood by Ottenheimer, who resolved the situation and told the young man that Dr. Stirland would fly to Toronto. He wished her a safe flight and left.

Roberto Franzosi (sociology) gave another socio-cultural example of how his “How are you?” in England forced him to return from 10 feet ahead to listen to the answer to his question. He had meant it merely as a greeting, as in America.

These examples, pointed out Debra, are only a first step in the inquiry. They show the need for both linguistic and cultural competencies, and that we do not speak in a vacuum. But how do we understand these competencies and their context-sensitive activations?

Accommodation:
Lynne introduced the concept of accommodation. In her field of study, vocal accommodation for speaking style has been observed. Utterances take on the characteristics of the interlocutor. Such accommodation has been found to be more common among women, Lynne told us. Bob McCauley (CMBC) wondered whether this is universal and hypothesized that it might be cultural. He also pointed out that his was an empirical question and can be tested.

Laura Namy (psychology), Donald Tuten (linguistics), Bob, and Lynne discussed the gender difference in accommodation. And Lynne added in favor of its universality some results from animal studies. Don spoke about how automatic or voluntary the process of accommodation is, and how gender often cannot be separated from power. In developmental studies, there is increasing evidence that up to the age of 6-7, children appear to accommodate automatically, and that it is hard to inhibit this behavior. Adults though can adopt non-accommodating strategies. And Bob was curious again about the universality of the phenomenon.

Apropos accommodation, Debra whose field-work was in Zambia, was impressed by how two people, with different yet close enough languages, often carry out dialogues in which each uses his or her own native language. The diversity of languages is culturally accepted and accommodated for. Quite in contrast to what one might see in the Balkans, where the language of the discourse expresses the power relation between the interlocutors.

That we have been left with many questions is a testament to the richness and the complexity of the topic. Studying language in isolation, as in Chomskian linguistics, enjoys mathematical elegance and can answer some linguistic questions. But at the end, how we approach difficult questions depends on context.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Lennard & Everett: Music and the Brain



Paul Lennard & Steve Everett
Music and the Brain: Neuroscientific and Musical Perspectives


Paul Lennard (Neuroscience & Behavioral Biology) and Steve Everett (Music) opened the lunch meeting about music and the brain with four questions: (1) What is music? (2) Is music a language? (3) Does music have an adaptive value? And (4) What is culture’s impact on the meaning of music?

Lennard shared a graphical model of how the basilar membrane of the cochlea responds to Bach. Yet emphasized that there is still much that is unknown about how the brain processes sounds: for instance, the way the brain processes pitch. Pitch is our perceived highness or lowness of a sound. When different instruments play the A above middle C (with fundamental frequency of 440 Hz) each has a unique recognizable quality based on its fundamental and accompanying harmonics. In the case of the oboe, when playing the A above middle C, the instrument is actually producing the harmonics (880 Hz, 1320 Hz, etc), and only very little of the fundamental frequency. The brain fills in, reconstructs, this frequency.

Everett then asked What is music, and shared with us four minutes of Francis Dhomont’s Frankenstein Symphony. Dhomont cut apart and stitched back together music elements, much like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein did. Is this music? Often the elements manipulated are not played by musicians but are recordings of various sounds, assembled to create acousmatic music, for which any natural sound is kosher.

For Walt Reed (ILA) Frankenstein sounded like “industrial noise, not music.” Music needs to have form and intent. Bob McCauley (CMBC), and Robert DeHaan (Division of Educational Studies) joined the debate, “Must the agency be human?” Or “Maybe not being random is enough, regardless of the agency?”

Everett responded citing John Cage: The experience of sound does not depend on the intent of the composer but on the openness of the perceiver. Therefore music can be bird-chirps, the sounds of the city traffic, or the sounds of a water-fall, as well as the sounds of a string quartet. John Snarey (Candler School of Theology) agreed. Music, he said, was a construction of his own ears.

Todd Preuss (Yerkes) raised the question of whether birds perceive bird songs as music. And this deepened the question about the perceiver. Cory Inman (Psychology Department) suggested that music evokes emotions with valence for the perceiver, and that for him, like for Reed, Frankenstein sounded as emotional as a sound track.

Does it have to do with culture?
Organization of sounds, said Everett, is culturally determined. Exposure to new sounds and new organizations can extend what is music to an individual. This was his own experience as a first-time listener to Javanese music. But his experience can be extended to other cultures, which he introduced in a series of rhetorical questions: “Is Tibetan multiphonic chanting evocative to any listener, or only to those who understand its symbolism?” “Is the timbre of the violin, so much loved in the West, more beautiful than the sound of the Japanese Noh instruments?” “Is beauty the ability to evoke the sublime? For the Japanese ear, the bamboo flute, shakuhachi, is intended to sound like ‘the wind blowing through grass.’”

Everett answered. There is an optimal ratio between the familiar and the novel. Too novel is not evocative. Too familiar is boring. Mozart put many surprises into a context of familiar music. The Austrian Johann Hummel did not and was greatly liked by his contemporaries, but today we hardly remember him. His contemporary Beethoven, with his many novelties, had to wait for later times to be fully appreciated. Reed, relying on Kant, suggested a different distinction. Beethoven pushed music and the concept of beauty towards the romantic and Hummel towards the classic.

We should replace “beauty” with “meaning,” suggested Lennard and took us back to one of the opening questions, Is music a language? Darwin considered music as a protolanguage preceding human language. Brain imaging studies show that the more a person is trained in music, the more lateralized the processing of music in his or her brain is, typically favoring, like for language, the left hemisphere. Closer studies of individual voxels (voxel is the 3-dimensional brain-image analogue of the 2-dimensional pixel on a computer-screen) show that the same voxels get activated in processing words and pitch; but the level of activation varies. Studies of people with aphasia – linguistic impairments – add to the convergence of music and language by showing that aphasiacs are also impaired in processing music.

Speech and music then are mixed together and processed by the same apparatus. How do we cognitively separate them? Laura Namy (Psychology Department) observed that while the apparatus is the same, different systems are involved – the aesthetic, the cultural, and the limbic. To the latter Lennard dissented, informing us that the amygdala of the limbic system is not strongly activated during listening to music. Lots of brain activation goes on but mainly in regions that are linked with culture like the temporal and the prefrontal lobes.

Namy maintained her skepticism and Lennard moved to her area of expertise. Children between 7-9 months start losing sensitivity to syllables that are not included in their native language. Similarly children between 7-11 months undergo a filtering process of rhythms. While West-European children develop preference to 1:2 over 3:2, the reverse is observed with Balkan children.

What if one never heard music, asked Inman. And Namy shared the story of a former student of hers, who after a cochlear implant, which was optimized for processing speech, lost her former ability to listen to music, suggesting that they are processed differently. Is there a critical age for the cochlea implant? for exposure to music? Is there an age beyond which the sound is not music anymore? DeHaan reflected, maybe critical age can be used to define music by understanding what gets lost beyond the critical age.

Does music have any adaptive value?
returned Lennard to one of the opening questions and reminded us that in The Descent of Man, Darwin spoke of music as mysterious, but speculated that it played a role in sexual selection. Namy hypothesized on the role of music in social bonding, like between mother and infant. And Jim Rilling (Anthropology Department) added the example of social bonding through music prior to going to war. The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar was cited: Music playa a role in the rituals of grooming.

What about rhythm?
Maybe the bimanual drumming of primates precedes music, proposed Lennard. Responding to a question by Richard Patterson (Philosophy Department), Everett pointed that to listen to music one needs temporal units, and he pointed to the automaticity of recognizing rhythmical units: At the moment one enters a techno club, one starts moving to the rhythm. This is an expression of the embodiment of music. While so far we limited our discussion to music and the brain, we should not neglect the heart, whose beating serves as a frame of reference. Cross-culturally, people agree on slow and fast. They all have hearts that beat in the same range.

We got closer to the end of the hour. Have we come closer to answering the first question, “What is music?” Kevin McCulloch (Candler School of Theology) suggested a new criterion: Songs tend to stick in his head. By contrast, the electronic music, to which we listened in the beginning of the hour, does not. Schumann, Everett reminded us, was haunted by music stuck in his head and attempted suicide to liberate himself from his musical ghosts.

Ghosts or muses? Music is named after the muses. And we have just peeked into our brains and hearts, aesthetics and culture, to explore how the muses work. Our inquiry did not scare them away, and we were allowed to ask new questions and create new music. It seems the muses will continue to inspire us as composers and listeners, but the questions, the answers, and the music will keep changing.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Cook: Conceptual Blending and Shakespeare



Amy Cook
Conceptual Blending Theory and Shakespeare's
Henry V

Amy Cook (Theater and Literature, Indiana University) spoke in today’s CMBC lunch. While typically we get an interdisciplinary flavor in these lunches by having two speakers from different disciplines, this time Amy was alone, speaking from an interdisciplinary space. She uses the blending theory of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner as scaffold for her understanding of the theatre. The main idea of blending theory is that we process language, and especially metaphors, by blending inputs from two or more cognitive spaces into a newly created cognitive space. The subtleties of the theory were sacrificed on the altar of interdisciplinarity; which later brought a question by Dierdra Reber of the Spanish and Portuguese department about the destiny of interdisciplinary studies. This was followed by reflection of Andrei Olifer of the biology department about the differences between science and the humanities.

While the theoretical aspects of blending theory were only touched upon to provide context, the examples generated a lively and rich discussion. Amy chose the number 0, which represents nothing and thus has no place. Yet it is used as a placeholder that can afford the expression of very large numbers, like a million with 6 zeros. That 0 has no place value and serves as a place holder, that 0 simultaneously expresses the smallest and the largest, we learn in the very beginning of Henry V .

The choir enters with: “O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend / The brightest heaven of invention, / A kingdom for a stage, / princes to act.” And later points to the crooked figure and the million, “So great an object: can this cockpit hold / The vasty fields of France? or may we cram / Within this wooden O the very casques / That did affright the air at Agincourt?/ O, pardon! since a crooked figure may/ Attest in little place a million;”

Nothingness, like 0, can also hold blended meanings. Bradd Shore pointed to Hamlet whose completion brings nothingness. Amy brought an example from King Lear’s conversation with his daughter Cordelia. At the first scene of the first act Lear speaks with all his daughters. Finally he speaks with the youngest:

Lear
: Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sister? Speak.
Cordelia
: Nothing, my lord.
Lear
: Nothing?
Cordelia
: Nothing.
Lear
: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

Thanks to the missing foot that demands a pause for the sake of the rhythm, we discover that “nothing” can mean many things. In producing the play, the interpreter has to decide where to pause. And this affects the meaning. This was demonstrated by Amy as Lear, and a lady from the department of Theatre Studies whose name has escaped me (Help!) as Cordelia. They read the dialogue four times, and each time they inserted the pause prior to a different “nothing.” Try it. It makes a difference. And the reason is that in each arrangement we draw the “nothing” and the pause from different cognitive inputs and therefore blend them into a different new cognitive space, into a different meaning.

This dialog of King Lear and his daughter Cordelia at the beginning of the play tells us how the play will end. As though their exchange of “nothing”s serves as a place-holder for what later contains the core of the story. Similarly, the opening choir of Henry V tells us how things will end. Never before have I noticed this Chekhovian structure in Shakespeare’s plays.

The blending of two opposites kept coming. Such blending can be achieved in a theatrical performance in various ways. Ionesco’s “playing against the text,” with comical performance of a serious text, or solemn performance of a comic text is one way of blending two opposite cognitive spaces. Viola of the Twelfth Night, who is feminine yet speaks like a man to keep her disguise, is another such example of blending of opposites.

This has taken me back to some years ago when my husband David and I struggled to translate the poem “He Peeked and Died” by the 20th century H. N . Bialik from Hebrew into English. In his mystical journey towards the source, the protagonist “Struggled to limits no limits, the place at which opposites/ Blend at their root.” And when he finally arrived he sank on “The threshold of nothing.”