Abstract

This talk will present an overview of dance research undertaken in my lab at McMaster University, Ontario. Topics will include: (1) group dancing and interpersonal memory (involving “silent-disco” experiments that surreptitiously transmitted music at different tempi to individuals within groups); (2) eye movements made in response to dance (in which the effects of gestures and synchrony on fixations and saccades were investigated); and (3) developing dance technology for the rehabilitation of people with Parkinson’s disease. Guiding much of this research is a belief that…

“Cultural patterning contributes to the selection of those mechanisms that transform affect and cognition into meaningful patterns of body movement, which arrest attention both because they are intentional and extraordinary.”

Hanna, J. L. (1987). To dance is human: A theory of nonverbal communication. University of Chicago Press