listening to music primes space: pianists, but not novices, simulate heard actions

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Listening to music primes space: pianists, but not novices,simulate heard actions

J. Eric T. Taylor • Jessica K. Witt

Received: 7 August 2013 / Accepted: 24 January 2014

� Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Abstract Musicians sometimes report twitching in their

fingers or hands while listening to music. This anecdote

could be indicative of a tendency for auditory-motor co-

representation in musicians. Here, we describe two studies

showing that pianists (Experiment 1), but not novices

(Experiment 2) automatically generate spatial representa-

tions that correspond to learned musical actions while lis-

tening to music. Participants made one-handed movements

to the left or right from a central location in response to

visual stimuli while listening to task-irrelevant auditory

stimuli, which were scales played on a piano. These task-

irrelevant scales were either ascending (compatible with

rightward movements) or descending (compatible with

leftward movements). Pianists were faster to respond when

the scale direction was compatible with the direction of

response movement, whereas novices’ movements were

unaffected by the scale. These results are in agreement with

existing research on action–effect coupling in musicians,

which draw heavily on common coding theory. In addition,

these results show how intricate auditory stimuli (ascend-

ing or descending scales) evoke coarse, domain-general

spatial representations.

Introduction

Music is the manifestation of action. To produce a piece of

music, a performer must complete a specific set of coor-

dinated movements. Given that the relationship between a

musician’s actions and the resultant sound is causal and

highly reliable, musical stimuli can convey information for

action. For example, an ascending C-major scale might

imply one sequence of hand postures, whereas a C-minor

scale might imply another. In this sense, listening to music

can be construed as observing an action. Typically, theories

of musical cognition emphasize the purely auditory and

esthetic processes involved in listening to music (Seashore,

1967; Hallam, Cross, & Thaut, 2009). However, a growing

literature demonstrates how the perception of action may

be a fundamental component of musical cognition (e.g.,

Molnar-Szakacs & Overy, 2006; Hodges, 2009; Alt-

enmuller & Schneider, 2009, Godøy & Leman, 2010).

Consistent with this idea, there is substantial evidence

supporting the notion that listening to music recruits cog-

nitive processes specialized for action. In this article, we

expand on this idea by demonstrating that complex audi-

tory musical stimuli—in this case, scales—can evoke

coarse spatial representations in trained pianists.

Co-representation of action and perception in musicians

The notion that perceiving music can employ the obser-

ver’s motor system has garnered empirical support from

neuroscience in recent years. In a MEG study, experienced

pianists exhibited increased activation in primary motor

cortex when listening to a piano piece, indicating that the

part of the brain responsible for controlling movements

became active while listening to music. Interestingly, this

J. E. T. Taylor (&)

Department of Psychology, University of Toronto,

100 St. George St, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada

e-mail: [email protected]

J. K. Witt

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA

123

Psychological Research

DOI 10.1007/s00426-014-0544-x

activation is localized to the portion of motor cortex that

controls the specific finger that would typically play the

heard note (Haueisen & Knosche, 2001). In an fMRI study,

contrasting observation of piano playing with observation

of serial finger-thumb movements revealed stronger acti-

vation in pre-motor cortex in pianists compared to novices

(Haslinger, Erhard, Altenmuller, Schroeder, Boecker, &

Ceballos-Baumann, 2005), suggesting that observing the

piano performance implicitly activated the musicians’

motor systems. And TMS disruption of pianists’ right

motor cortex interferes with the ability to coordinate with a

left-hand part in a learned performance; moreover, this

effect is exacerbated for individuals high in empathy

(Novembre, Ticini, Schutz-Bosbach, & Keller, 2013). This

effect suggests that pianists automatically represent heard

music using their own motor processes. If this is indeed the

case, then hearing music may interact with performing

music concurrently, as the internally and externally gen-

erated motor programs may overlap. Indeed, musicians

synchronize better with themselves than with recordings

made by other experts, because the internally generated

motor program and the externally (auditorily) activated

motor program align (Keller, Knoblich, & Repp, 2007).

The connection between perceptual and motor process-

ing in musicians is reciprocal: executing musical actions

induces activity in auditory cortex in violinists, even

without auditory feedback (Lotze, Scheler, Tan, Braun, &

Birbaumer, 2003). Moreover, the co-activation of auditory

and motor areas while listening to piano music can be

achieved in novices through training, suggesting that the

shared auditory and motor representation of music is

achieved through long hours of practice, rather than some

innate predilection for musicianship (Bangert & Alt-

enmuller, 2003; Lahav, Saltzman, & Schlaug, 2007).

These studies demonstrate that the brain areas involved

in perceiving music and performing music are co-activated

in musicians, but not novices. While this co-activation has

been taken as evidence that motor processes are a critical

component of musical cognition (e.g., Molnar-Szakacs &

Overy, 2006), it could also be argued that the implicit

motor activation is merely incidental to auditory and other

processes. In this view, motor processes become activated

while listening to music because the sounds are strongly

associated with the actions that can produce it, but the

motor processes have nothing to do with musical cognition

per se. In other words, it could be argued that the cognitive

processes engaged while listening to music could proceed

without any activity in motor processes (for a similar

skeptical evaluation of the role of embodied motor pro-

cesses in grounding abstract concepts, see Mahon &

Caramazza, 2008).

Perhaps the best evidence that motor processes can be a

constitutive component of musical cognition comes from

studies showing how musicians’ ability to play music is

impaired by the concurrent perception of incongruent

music. For example, when the task requires that partici-

pants respond by playing a given piano chord or interval,

hearing an incongruent chord or interval will slow reaction

times in pianists but not non-musicians (Drost, Rieger,

Brass, Gunter, & Prinz, 2005a, b). These effects generalize

to guitarists, and the compatibility effect between heard

and performed actions occurs only when listening to the

instrument with which the musicians have expert ability

(Drost, Rieger, & Prinz, 2007). These studies show how

perceiving music can influence the performance of musical

actions. This relationship suggests that, for musicians, the

perception of music necessarily involves the participation

of cognitive processes specialized for action.

If motor processes are part of, rather than strictly inci-

dental to musical cognition, the reverse should also be true:

performing musical actions should influence the perception

of music. Indeed, pianists are more likely to hear a per-

ceptually bistable pitch change (that is, a pair of sounds

equally likely to be perceived as increasing or decreasing in

pitch) as increasing if they are concurrently performing a

rightward action, and as decreasing if they are concurrently

performing a leftward action (Repp & Knoblich, 2007).

The direction of the action matters because pianists have

learned a strong association between space on the hori-

zontal plane and pitch: on a piano, leftward actions cor-

respond to decreasing pitch and rightward actions

correspond to increasing pitch. Importantly, novices are

equally likely to hear the bistable pitch change as

increasing or decreasing regardless of their concurrent

action, suggesting that learned and practiced associations

between action and perception are necessary for the effect

(Repp & Knoblich, 2007). Moreover, this effect is larger in

pianists than in non-pianist expert musicians, suggesting

that the effect depends on the learned ability to operate a

piano keyboard rather than some general musical expertise

(Repp & Knoblich, 2009). Together, these studies show

how action can alter the perception of music, supporting

the claim that motor processes can be involved in musical

cognition.

Mapping music to space

Action representations include the dimensions of space. So

it is unsurprising that, like action and music, space and

music share some representation as well. Consider the

metaphorical link between pitch and verticality; the tradi-

tion of Western music describes increasing or decreasing

pitch intensities as ‘‘higher’’ or ‘‘lower’’, respectively

(Eitan & Granot, 2006). This metaphor seems to reflect an

activation of spatial representations while observing


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different pitches. For example, higher pitches are localized

as occurring vertically higher on a scale (Pratt, 1930). This

association exists in one-year old infants, who associate

higher and low pitches with up and down arrows, respec-

tively, in a selective-looking task (Wagner, Winner, Cic-

chetti, & Gardner, 1981). In the SMARC effect, high or

low pitches can prime responses made to up or down

responses in novices (Rusconi, Kwan, Giordano, Umilta, &

Butterworth, 2006; Lidji, Kolinksy, Lochy, & Morais,

2007). These studies also reveal a horizontal association:

task-irrelevant high or low pitches can alter performance

for right or left responses, respectively. This horizontal

representation of pitch tends to occur only in musicians

(Rusconi et al., 2006; Lidji et al., 2007; Stewart, Walsh, &

Frith, 2004). Thus, the verticality of pitch seems relatively

common across the population, but the horizontal repre-

sentation of pitch seems to be limited to, or at least stronger

in musicians (although see Wuhr & Musseler, 2002).

Common coding in music

Studies demonstrating interactions between the perfor-

mance and perception of music converge on similar

explanations, borrowing from the theory of event coding

(Hommel, Musseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001). This

perspective holds that perceptual representations and action

plans are mutually represented by common distal features.

At the proximal level, perception and action are repre-

sented separately. Beyond proximal codes lie distal codes

or representations, which are more abstract. It is at the

distal level that action and perception share a common

representation. An object’s visual location, for example,

could be distally represented in common with a reaching

trajectory.

One consequence of common coding is the possibility of

reciprocal priming. Learned actions can prime their per-

ceptual consequents, and perceptual events can prime their

action antecedents. For example, reaching for a cup might

activate a visual representation of its handle’s location;

reciprocally, seeing a cup might prime a motoric repre-

sentation of the appropriate reaching trajectory (cf. Tucker

& Ellis, 1998).

Critically, for our purposes, is that common coding can

occur at a more abstract level such as the concept of ‘‘left’’

versus ‘‘right’’. If common coding is the underlying

mechanism for why simply listening to music evokes

corresponding motor representations, these priming effects

should be found not just for the specific actions that would

be required to produce the sounds (e.g., scales and inter-

vals; Drost et al., 2005a, b, 2007) but also for more general

actions that incorporate abstract features such as coarse

movements to the left or to the right.

However, this effect should only be evident in musi-

cians, whose experience coordinating action and perception

is extensive. Musicians develop strong integrated action–

effect associations between musical actions and the music

they produce. Over the course of their training, performing

musical actions and perceiving their musical effects both

result in the activation of common distal codes. This

bidirectional representation predicts reciprocal effects

between action and perception: When performing a musi-

cal action, expected musical outcomes are primed (e.g.,

Repp & Knoblich, 2007, 2009); when hearing music, the

corresponding motor antecedents are induced (e.g. Drost

et al., 2005a, b, 2007). These studies have demonstrated a

high degree of specificity in the reciprocal priming of

action and perception: The low-level properties of the

perceptual stimuli (e.g., the frequency spectrum of a note

played on piano) and the low-level features of the corre-

sponding action (e.g., which specific finger might play that

note) can be linked. However, if event coding can truly

account for the reciprocal action–effect associations in

musicians, then we should also expect a certain degree of

generality in these reciprocal effects. This generality would

be expressed in the reciprocal priming of more abstract

rather than more specific features of music and musical

action. For example, a musical scale played on piano (i.e.,

notes of different pitches played in succession) can be

perceptually categorized as either ascending or descending,

and the action that would perform those scales may at some

level contain a coarse spatial representation of either left or

right.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to advance the claim

that musicians represent musical actions and music with a

common code. We examined broad horizontal arm move-

ments, which have not previously been examined in the

context of spatial priming through music. In this study, we

asked whether hearing ascending or descending scales can

prime a corresponding spatial representation for these left

or right arm movements. Critically, such priming should

exist only for musicians, who have formed strong action–

effect associations between music and musical actions.

Such a finding would provide further evidence that musi-

cians’ action–effect associations are fundamentally

embodied through their ability to enact music.

Experiment 1

To examine whether music and musical actions evoke a

common code in musicians, we used an interference par-

adigm to assess whether hearing musical stimuli affects

performance of concurrent actions. If listening to music

necessarily involves the motor processes used to produce

music, then musicians’ performance of leftward or


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rightward hand actions should be impaired when listening

to incompatible scales, even if the scales are totally irrel-

evant to the task. First, we assessed trained pianists’ per-

formance in making broad left or right hand movements

while listening to ascending or descending scales. Because

ascending scales are always caused by rightward move-

ments and descending scales are always caused by leftward

movements,1 the scale and the action could be compatible

or incompatible. For example, hearing an ascending scale

should activate a representation of right space, which

should interfere with the execution of concurrent leftward

movements (e.g., Kilner, Paulignan, & Blakemore, 2003).

Method

Participants

Thirteen pianists (eight female; two left handed; age:

M = 21 years, SD = 4.10) participated for class credit or

monetary compensation. Pianists had a minimum of

9 years of formal training (M = 12.38 years, SD = 3.07,

range 9–20 years).

Materials and stimuli

The two visual stimuli consisted of black arrows 5 cm in

length facing left or right on a white background. The

auditory stimuli were one-octave scales in C major. The

scales could be either ascending or descending, starting

from either a low C (C2), a middle C (C4), or a high C

(C6), for a total of six different scales. The scales consisted

of eight notes each, and each lasted 4 s. Responses were

made on a standard computer keyboard. Red stickers were

placed on the three horizontally aligned keyboard buttons.

The left and right buttons were equidistant (9.6 cm) from

center.

Procedure

There were two stages to the experiment. First, participants

completed a baseline task designed to assess any differ-

ences in the speed of moving the arm to the contralateral or

ipsilateral side of the body in the absence of musical

stimuli. All responses were made with the index finger of

the active hand. The active hand, left or right, was blocked

in random order (henceforth, ‘‘active’’ refers to the hand

making responses in a given block). Participants initiated a

trial by pressing the center button, whereupon a black

arrow would appear at the center of the screen, pointing left

or right. The participants’ task was to press the button, left

or right, that corresponded to the direction of the arrow.

Thus, the movement required to make the appropriate

button response was a horizontal arm movement from the

center of the keyboard to either the left or the right button

position. Response time (RT) was measured as the time

from the onset of the visual stimuli to the response. Par-

ticipants completed 40 trials of this baseline task; 20 with

each hand.

The test phase of the experiment consisted of two blocks

of trials in random order, one for each hand. All responses

were made with the index finger of the active hand. Par-

ticipants initiated a trial by pressing the center button,

whereupon one of the six scales began to play through the

headphones (see Fig. 1). This task-irrelevant auditory

stimulus played for half of its duration (2 s) before a black

arrow, the task-relevant visual stimuli, appeared on the

display at a central position. The scale continued to play for

the rest of its duration (4 s total) or until the participant

made a response, followed by a 1 s inter-stimulus interval.

Participants were instructed to respond to the visual stimuli

by pressing the button that corresponded to the direction

the arrow was pointing. RT was measured as time from the

onset of the visual stimuli until time of response. Partici-

pants completed 240 trials; 10 for each combination of

hand (2), scale direction (2), scale pitch (3), and arrow

direction (2) Participants were instructed to respond as

1 Note that although a descending (ascending) scale must be played

with leftward (rightward) hand-finger movements, the arm move-

ments that precedes the scale is independent; a pianist might reach

rightward to initiate a descending scale, which would be performed

with leftward movements.

Fig. 1 Time course of a trial during the test phase. Participants began

a trial by pressing the center button with the index finger of the

specified hand. This initiated the auditory stimulus. Two seconds

later, when the scale was halfway complete, an arrow appeared at the

central location, indicating the correct response. Response time was

measured as the time between arrow onset and response at with the

index finger of the same hand. Thus, we measured the duration of a

leftward or rightward hand movement


123

quickly as possible without making errors in both the

baseline and test phases.

Results and discussion

There was no effect of which hand was used to make the

responses (all Fs \ 0.47, ps [ 0.506), so subsequent

analyses were collapsed across this variable. In the test

phase of the experiment, pianists were faster to respond left

than right, F(1,12) = 5.38, p = 0.039, gp2 = 0.31. There

was no effect of scale direction, F(1,12) \ 0.01, p = 0.97.

Critically, there was an interaction between the direction of

pianists’ movements and the direction of the scale they

heard, F(1,12) = 8.67, p = 0.012, gp2 = 0.42 (see Fig. 2).

Post hoc comparisons of RT for ascending versus

descending scales for both response directions failed to

reach significance (right responses, ascending vs.

descending: t(12) = 1.62, p = 0.132; left responses,

ascending vs. descending: t(12) = 1.82, p = 0.095).

Although neither comparison reached significance on its

own, comparing the compatible (mean of ascending, right

response, and descending, left response) and incompatible

(mean of ascending, left response, and descending, right

response) conditions reveals a clear effect of compatibility:

t(12) = 2.95, p = 0.012, d = 1.13, indicating a strong

compatibility effect between the direction of response and

the direction of the scale.

In the baseline task, pianists tended to make leftward

responses (M = 685.46 ms, SD = 82.22) faster than

rightward responses (M = 703.47 ms, SD = 80.73),

although this comparison was only marginally significant,

t(12) = 1.86, p = 0.087. This trend may explain why

leftward responses were faster than rightward responses

during the test phase.

These results show that hearing musical stimuli interacts

with trained pianists’ concurrent movements. Specifically,

pianists were faster to make broad left or right arm

movements in the same direction as the movements

required to play the scales they heard. Participants were not

instructed to respond to the scales, so any effect of the

scales on their responses can be attributed to an automatic

link between perception and action (cf. Simon & Rudell,

1967). Furthermore, the data provide support that common

coding underlies this automatic link. Specifically, we pro-

pose that hearing ascending or descending scales covertly

activated corresponding motor antecedents, which in this

case would be a sequence of hand movements with a coarse

representation of left or right space. Based on previous

research, we would expect that listening to music would

evoke specific actions required to produce the sounds

(Drost et al., 2005a, b). Here, we tested if listening to the

music would also evoke more general actions, meaning

actions that contain more general features such as left

versus right. By showing that a general movement to the

left or to the right is affected by the playing of an ascending

or descending scale, the results are consistent with an

explanation based on common coding (Prinz, 1997).

Experiment 2

To support the claim that the compatibility effect observed

in Experiment 1 was due to interference between executed

actions and spatial representations automatically generated

by hearing music, it was essential to demonstrate no effect

in a novice sample using the same design. Novices would

have never practiced the ability to perform scales, and

should therefore not possess the integrated action–effect

coupling between music and action.

Method

Sixteen novices participated for course credit (Eleven

male; age: M = 19.00 years, SD = 1.00; 1 left handed).

Novices had never received any instruction in piano. The

apparatus and procedure were identical to Experiment 1.

Results and discussion

There was no effect of which hand was used to make the

responses (all Fs \ 1.60, ps [ 0.225), so subsequent

analyses were collapsed across this variable. In the baseline

task, there was no difference between novices leftward

Fig. 2 Mean response times for Experiment 1 as a function of

direction of response and direction of scale. Pianists were faster to

move in a direction compatible with the heard scale. For pianists,

rightward movements are compatible with ascending scales and

leftward movements are compatible with descending scales. Error

bars represent one within-subjects standard error of the mean


123

movements (M = 757.98 ms, SD = 96.00) and rightward

movements (M = 760.95, SD = 104.66; t(15) = 0.21,

p = 0.84). However, in the main phase of the experiment,

novices were faster to respond left than right,

F(1,15) = 11.72, p = 0.004, gp2 = 0.44. There was no

effect of scale direction, F(1,15) = 1.52, p = 0.24. Criti-

cally, there was no interaction between the direction of

novices’ movements and the direction of the scale they

heard, F(1,15) = 0.63, p = 0.44 (see Fig. 3).

Unlike expert pianists, complete novices showed no

interaction between the direction of their movement and

the direction of the scales they heard. Without the experi-

ence connecting a sequence of musical actions to their

consequent sounds, hearing scales cannot evoke a corre-

sponding spatial representation, explaining the lack of

compatibility effect.

Combining the results of both experiments into a single

ANOVA, with experiment (expertise) as a between-subjects

factor does not yield a significant three-way interaction

between response direction, scale direction, and experi-

ment, F(1,27) = 1.46, p = 0.237. Regardless, the claim at

the heart of this investigation is that pianists automatically

generate spatial representations corresponding to the heard

music, while novices do not. The critical result in support of

this claim is the observed interaction between response

direction and scale direction in experts. Pianists, but not

novices, responded faster when the direction of their

response was compatible with the heard scale.

General discussion

Experienced pianists automatically generated spatial rep-

resentations that correspond to learned musical actions

during auditory observation of music. In two experiments,

expert pianists and total novices listened to task-irrelevant

ascending or descending scales while making left or right

arm movements in response to a visual target. Given that

the piano is canonically designed such that the keys

increase in pitch from left to right, pianists have strong

associations between pitch and horizontal space. Leftward

movements are thus compatible with descending scales and

rightward movements are compatible with rightward

scales. Results showed that pianists, but not novices,

responded faster when the direction of their response was

compatible with the direction of the scale they heard.

We attribute this compatibility effect to competition

between spatial representations activated by the task-rele-

vant arrow and the task-irrelevant music. The perceptual

categorization of a scale as ascending or descending

involves the activation of a high-level perceptual feature.

At this abstract level, perception and action are represented

by common codes. Thus, hearing an ascending or

descending scale should activate the abstract features of

associated actions, such as a coarse representation of space

(left versus right). Because ascending and descending

scales are always played with right or left movements,

respectively, listening to ascending or descending scales

should also activate left or right space. When the scale and

arrow were compatible, movement proceeded without

interference. When they were incompatible, competing

representations of space (left and right) were activated, and

RTs were slowed. Critically, only the pianists in our study

had the experience necessary to connect the features of

scales and actions. These results, and other existing studies

(e.g., Droust et al. 2005a, b, 2007; Haueisen & Knosche,

2001; Haslinger et al., 2005) demonstrate that motor pro-

cesses are automatically activated during the auditory

observation of musical stimuli. In this sense, we argue that

listening to music can be construed as observing an action;

when pianists hear scales, it activates a corresponding

motor representation as though they were actually playing,

viewing, or imagining that same music.

It is well known that musicians exhibit a strong reci-

procal relationship between the production and perception

of musical actions (e.g., Drost et al., 2005a, b, 2007; Repp

& Knoblich, 2007, 2009). The argument advanced in the

present study extends on existing research on action–effect

coupling in musicians in that the described compatibility

effect was between more abstract, high-level features of the

stimuli and actions. If the theory of event coding can truly

account for action–effect coupling in pianists, then the

reciprocal relationship between hearing and performing

music should exist for both specific and abstract features of

the sound and the actions. Previous research has focused

primarily on reciprocal priming of very specific move-

ments (Drost et al., 2005a, b, 2007; Repp & Knoblich,

Fig. 3 Mean response times for Experiment 2 as a function of

direction of response and direction of scale. Unlike pianists, novices

displayed no compatibility effect. Error bars represent one within-

subjects standard error of the mean


123

2007, 2009). Thus, our findings complement this research

by supporting the case for event coding as a likely expla-

nation for action–effect coupling in musicians. This study

is novel in that it examined the spatial priming through

music using a coarse arm movement. The finding that the

compatibility between music and space persists for

responses made with more general actions supports the

notion that common codes are at the heart of this

compatibility.

These findings are reminiscent of the spatial-musical

association of response codes (SMARC) effect, wherein

high or low pitch of auditory stimuli primes space (Rusconi

et al., 2006; also called spatial-pitch association of

response codes, or SPARC, Lidji et al., 2007). High pitches

primed up responses and low pitches primed down

responses in musicians and novices alike. Moreover, a

horizontal compatibility effect of high pitch with right

responses and low pitches with left responses was observed

in musicians. Our results are similar to the SMARC effect

in that they show how auditory stimuli can activate internal

representations of space that in turn affect motor perfor-

mance. Those studies also showed an effect of musical

training; while musical novices showed the vertical

SMARC effect, it was bigger in trained musicians. While

we also observed an effect of musical training, it is

important to note that novices display the SMARC effect,

whereas we found no effect of compatibility between

scales and space in novices. Scales are simple stimuli, and

any novice should be capable of identifying a scale as

ascending or descending in pitch. However, they lack the

experience connecting the auditory pattern of a scale to the

actions required to produce them. The compatibility effect

we observed is about more than the spatial representation

of pitch, or we should have observed the effect in novices;

scales are a sequence of pitches over time that imply

action. That action was lost on novices. In agreement with

our findings, Lidji et al. (2007) also report finding a com-

patibility effect between horizontal responses and musical

intervals increasing or decreasing in pitch in musicians but

not novices. Like scales, their interval stimuli are dynamic.

This is consistent with the perspective that a spatial-pitch

association of response codes exists in everyone, but a

spatial-musical association of response codes requires

musical training.

Our emphasis on the role of motor processes in the

observation of music places the present research within an

increasingly larger body of studies that examine how motor

processes are involved in the observation of many types of

art. For example, observing abstract paintings automati-

cally activates action representations corresponding to the

artist’s brushstrokes (Taylor, Witt, & Grimaldi, 2012; Le-

der, Bar, & Topolinski, 2012), and the observation of

sculpture and non-abstract paintings is similarly thought to

induce motor simulations of the depicted actions (Freed-

berg & Gallese, 2007). In dance, training for a novel dance

sequence leads to stronger simulations when observing that

dance, as measured with fMRI by increased activation in

brain areas known to represent both observed and executed

actions (Cross, Hamilton, & Grafton, 2006). Similarly,

expert dancers exhibit greater activation of mirror-system

areas while watching dancers in the style they have mas-

tered compared to an unfamiliar dance style (Calvo-Mer-

ino, Glaser, Grezes, Passingham, & Haggard, 2005). The

role of motor processes in the observation of art is thus

becoming an important idea in understanding the psy-

chology of many art forms.

Acknowledgments Jessica K. Witt was supported by a Grant from

the National Science Foundation (BCS-0957051).

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