Affordances and the musically extended mind.
Frontiers in Psychology January 6, 2014 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.01003 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Affordances Emotion regulation Emotions Extended cognition Music |
| Key points | Argues that music, via musical affordances and entrainment, enhances emotion-regulating processes and should be considered part of the extended mind's vehicle for realizing novel emotional experiences. |
Abstract
I defend a model of the musically extended mind. I consider how acts of "musicking" grant access to novel emotional experiences otherwise inaccessible. First, I discuss the idea of "musical affordances" and specify both what musical affordances are and how they invite different forms of entrainment. Next, I argue that musical affordances - via soliciting different forms of entrainment - enhance the functionality of various endogenous, emotion-granting regulative processes, drawing novel experiences out of us with an expanded complexity and phenomenal character. I argue that music therefore ought to be thought of as part of the vehicle needed to realize these emotional experiences. I appeal to different sources of empirical work to develop this idea.