Music Theorist Mariusz Kozak recommends “When the Sound Becomes the Goal. 4E Cognition and Teleomusicality in Early Infancy” by Andrea Schiavio, Dylan van der Schyff, Silke Kruse-Weber and Renee Timmers, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Marius and Finn interview Andrea about this framing of early musical development and implications of an embodied, embedded, extended and enactive approach to cognitive science.

Time Stamps



[0:00:10 ] Intro with Mariusz

[0:11:16 ] Interview: Origins and the 4 Es

[0:21:40 ] Interview: Attention, Intention, and Mirror Neurons

[0:32:59 ] Interview: Sound Goals and Musical Actions

[0:40:28 ] Interview: Reception of Theory

[0:53:03 ] Closing with Mariusz



Show notes



Recommended article:



Schiavio, A., van der Schyff, D., Kruse-Weber, S., & Timmers, R. (2017). When the Sound Becomes the Goal. 4E Cognition and Teleomusicality in Early Infancy. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1585.





Interviewee: Dr. Andrea Schiavio, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Graz

Co-host: Prof. Mariusz Kozak, Assistant Professor of Music at Columbia University

Works cited in the discussion:



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D’Ausilio, A. (2007). The role of the mirror system in mapping complex sounds into actions. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 5847–5848. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0979-07.2007

D’Ausilio, A. (2009). Mirror-like mechanisms and music. The Scientific World Journal, 9, 1415–1422. doi:10.1100/tsw.2009.160

Gerson, S. A., Bekkering, H., and Hunnius, S. (2015a). Short-term motor training, but not observational training, alters neurocognitive mechanisms of action processing in infancy. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 1207–1214. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00774

Haslinger, B., Erhard, P., Altenmüller, E., Schroeder, U., Boecker, H., & Ceballos-Baumann, A. O. (2005). Transmodal sensorimotor networks during action observation in professional pianists. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 282–293. doi:10.1162/0898929053124893

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Hickok-Gallese debate at NYU (2103) Do Mirror Neurons Explain Anything?

Kohler, E., Keysers, C., Umiltà, M. A., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., and Rizzolatti, G. (2002). Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons. Science, 297, 846–848. doi: 10.1126/science.1070311

Menary, R. (2010). Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 459–463.

Mukamel R., Ekstrom A.D., Kaplan J., Iacoboni M., Fried I., Single-Neuron Responses in Humans during Execution and Observation of Actions. Current Biology, vol. 20, nº 8.

Novembre, G., Ticini, L. F., Schütz-Bosbach, S., & Keller, P. E. (2014). Motor simulation and the coordination of joint actions in real time. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9, 1062–1068. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst086

Overy, K., and Molnar-Szakacs, I. (2009). Being together in time: musical experience and the mirror neuron system. Music Perception, 26, 489–504. doi: 10.1525/mp.2009.26.5.489

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