Theory, practice and performance

ABSTRACT

I focus on the enactivist and extended mind approaches to embodied cognition (EC), and specifically on the concepts of body schema, affectivity, distributed cognition and intersubjectivity to show how EC has relevance to questions about expert performance, and to the theory and practice of performing arts.

KEYWORDS:

• Body schema
• affectivity
• intersubjectivity
• embodied cognition
• music
• dance

The notion of embodied cognition (EC) has had an increasing impact not only on our understanding of the mind in cognitive science, but also on our understanding of performance in a variety of fields, including athletics (e.g. Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2016; Sutton & McIlwain, 2015; Sutton, McIlwain, Christensen, & Geeves, 2011) and the performing arts (Cook, 2010; Montero, 2015). In this paper I will briefly review several different theoretical concepts that come under the heading of EC. I will then show how different views of EC have sparked a debate concerning the notion of expert practice. Finally, I will suggest some implications for the study of performance in the context of performing arts.

Theory

Mind–body dualism has a long history in a variety of philosophical traditions. Within such traditions one finds primacy given to ideational/intellectual processes where the body is taken to be irrelevant except for sensory input and motor output. These traditional views carry over into the (1950–1980s) “cognitive revolution”, where computational and representational processes “in the head” (mind or brain) are considered to be the only processes that matter for cognition. Challenging this kind of internalism, the notion of the embodied mind started to take shape in the 1990s (e.g. Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991), drawing on phenomenology, and especially the work of Merleau-Ponty. On various views of EC, the body, situated in the surrounding physical and social environment, plays a constitutive role in cognition. Basic cognition and human intersubjectivity are deeply and inextricably embodied, environmentally embedded (situated), closely tied to action and extended (distributed) into the use of tools, technologies and other aspects of the environment. Such views have had an influence, not only in the cognitive sciences, but also in psychiatry and psychological therapy (Gallagher & Payne, 2014; Gallagher & Væver, 2004; Röhricht, Gallagher, Geuter, & Hutto, 2014), and more recently in the humanities, the arts and in studies of performance (Anderson, 2015; Anderson et al., 2015; Høffding, 2015).

In most EC approaches there is general (although not unanimous) agreement opposing internalism – the notion that cognition is entirely “in the head” or a matter of individualistic mechanisms. Beyond that, however, there are philosophical disputes within EC and no overall consensus about some very basic concepts, including the concept of “mental representation”.

Consider, for example, the concept of body schema, which was central to Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) analysis of perception and continues to be of relevance in a variety of fields, including medicine, psychiatry, sports science, etc. The body schema is the system of sensory-motor processes that function without necessarily involving perceptual monitoring or awareness. The body schema governs postural and motor control during action, much of which occurs automatically and non-consciously. In learning a new movement, in the context of athletic practice or dance, however, one may start by self-consciously attending to one's posture, balance and limb position as one attempts to move them properly to the task. One's attention might also be directed to such bodily movement by the instructions of a trainer. With practice, however, the formation of motor habits, and with gains in expertise in movement, one's attention is typically directed elsewhere, away from the specifics of bodily movement, and more towards elements of the world, including others. In such cases, practiced body-schematic processes take over and at least some aspects of movement and action become trained or automatic (Pereira, Abreu, & Castro-Caldas, 2013).

On cognitivist models, the body schema is reduced to strictly neuronal processes or body maps in the brain. Berlucchi and Aglioti (2010), for example, look in the brain to identify a specific anatomical and functional neural system responsible for the immediate and automatic guidance of action, centred in the posterior parietal cortex – a body representation equivalent to the body schema. This “body-in-the-brain” strategy, however, runs into problems that derive in part from the complex ambiguities involved when it comes to mapping out brain function (see Gallagher, 2012). Regardless of whether one can isolate a neural representation corresponding to the body schema, however, on the EC, dynamical-embodied conception, body-schematic processes involve extensive peripheral and extra-neural factors, including proprioceptors (which involve both neural and non-neural parts), joints and muscles. Likewise, body-schematic processes are not reducible to simple motor programmes (e.g. Neilson & Neilson, 2005), equivalent to a computational pre-programming of movement that is automatically and inflexibly exercised in a certain behavioural context. Motor responses, for example, rather than fully determined at brain-level, are mediated by the design of muscles and tendons, their degrees of flexibility, their geometric relationships to other muscles and joints, and their prior history of activation. In terms of dynamical systems theory, body-schematic processes involve ongoing adjustments made in response to environmental changes, where parts of the environment can modulate body-schematic processes (Gallagher, 2005a). In addition, however, such motor processes, no matter how automatic, are modulated by the agent's intention. Reaching to pick up an apple may involve many of the same motor processes in different instances, but if one reaches to pick it up in order to take a bite of it, versus to offer it to someone, versus to throw it, the precise kinematic details of the movements are different (Becchio, Manera, Sartori, Cavallo, & Castiello, 2012).

The body schema begins to form early in fetal development and is functional at birth in a way that may explain phenomena such as early hand–mouth coordination, and the possibility of neonate imitation (Gallagher & Meltzoff, 1996). Even if present at birth it continues to develop, along with body growth and development, throughout childhood. The attunement of the body schema to specialised movements in athletics and other kinds of performance is an important aspect of training and self-training.

Beyond that, it is important to note that the body schema is clearly affected by various cultural and social factors, as pointed out by feminists and race theorists (e.g. Fanon, 2008; Weiss, 2015; Young, 1980). It is also the case that the body schema can expand to include clothes, tools and instruments. Merleau-Ponty (2012), following Head (1920), mentions the case of the blind man's cane. Empirical studies have demonstrated the incorporation of various tools into the body schema (Maravita & Iriki, 2004; Maravita, Spence, Kennett, & Driver, 2002). This is often characterised, in part, as extending the range of peripersonal space to encompass the reach of the tool during use. Tools and instruments, through habitual use, become extensions of one's body, and any modification in the instrument involves a modulation in the body schema. There is also evidence for the formation of a “joint body schema” during a cooperative action scenario; peripersonal space extends to include the reachable space of one's nearby action partner (Soliman, Ferguson, Dexheimer, & Glenberg, 2015; Soliman & Glenberg, 2014).

The idea of a body schema that extends in order to incorporate tools and instruments is consistent with one of the most significant theoretical developments in EC – the notion of distributed cognition, or the “extended mind” (Clark, 2008). According to the extended mind hypothesis the mechanisms (vehicles) of cognition include pieces of the environment – the tools and technologies that we use to accomplish cognitive tasks (e.g. pencil and paper to do math, notebooks or personal digital assistants for memory) – some of which (e.g. prosthetics, cognitive enhancements, etc.), might be incorporated into the body, or the body schema. The extended mind hypothesis develops an idea originally suggested by pragmatist thinkers like John Dewey.

Hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of all kinds are as much a part of it [thinking] as changes in the brain. Since these physical operations (including the cerebral events) and equipment are a part of thinking, thinking is mental, not because of a peculiar stuff which enters into it or of peculiar non-natural activities which constitute it, but because of what physical acts and appliances do: the distinctive purpose for which they are employed and the distinctive results which they accomplish. (Dewey, 1916, pp. 8–9)

Clark’s (2008) conception of the extended mind builds on a functionalist view that downplays the role of the biological body – cognition could be instantiated in a robotic body, for example. Moreover, he considers the notion of representation as important for an explanation of both basic action-oriented behaviour and higher-order, “representation-hungry” cognition. Higher representational processes of the cognitive system will provide “compensatory adjustments” to even out differences in the experiential aspects (caused, for example, by differences in bodily systems) accompanying cognition.

In contrast, enactivist approaches to EC reject the notion of internal, mental representation entirely. Building on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, enactivism emphasises the idea that perception is not just a passive sensory processing of information, it is rather closely connected to action. Perception is action oriented, or “for action”, and this action-orientation shapes most cognitive processes. Perception is thus viewed as pragmatic and best explained in terms of body-relative affordances (Gibson, 1977). Affordances are relational insofar as they are constituted, not just by the objective features of the environment, but also by the particular embodiment and skill level of the agent who is coupled with the physical and social environment. Like the extended mind idea – the mind is not simply “in the head” or reducible to brain processes; rather, it is distributed across body and environment, to the extent that body and environment are dynamically coupled. Accordingly, for enactivism, the explanatory unit is brain–body–environment.

Unlike extended mind proponents, however, enactivists claim that biological and affective bodily processes, as well as environmental factors, shape and contribute to the constitution of consciousness and cognition in an irreducible and irreplaceable way – i.e. the human body as a whole is essential for human cognition. Biological aspects of bodily life, including autonomic, peripheral, affective/emotion systems, have a permeating effect on cognition, as do processes of dynamical sensory-motor coupling (body-schematic processes) between organism and environment. For example, hormonal changes – changes in body chemistry – as well as visceral and musculoskeletal processes, can bias perception, memory, attention and decision-making. Regulation of body chemistry is not autonomous from cognitive processes, and vice versa. “Body regulation, survival, and mind are intimately interwoven” (Damasio, 1994, p. 123). Hunger and fatigue, as well as emotion, or affect more generally, can have a significant impact on cognitive processes (e.g. Colombetti, 2013; Danziger, Levav, & Avnaim-Pesso, 2011; Gallagher & Bower, 2014).

Enactivism also emphasises the role of intersubjectivity in regard to action and cognition. The presence of others has been shown to affect perception, behavioural response, affective attunement and judgement (Bayliss, Paul, Cannon, & Tipper, 2006, 2007; Hayes, Paul, Beuger, & Tipper, 2008; Sebanz, Knoblich, & Prinz, 2003). Our primary relations with others involve embodied interactions, starting in early infancy, if not prenatally (Trevarthen, 1979). Even in purely observational cases that involve little or no interaction, our motor systems have been shown to resonate to the actions and emotions of others (Gallese, 2014). Such motor resonance is part of what Merleau-Ponty (2012) calls “intercorporeity”. Enactivists interpret this type of resonance, not as an internal neural simulation or representation of the other's actions, but as part of an action-preparatory process to respond to the other agent (Gallagher, 2008).

To summarise, EC theory is still unsettled and a number of central issues are still under debate, including disagreements about representation, how we should view embodiment itself, and the nature of the body–environment coupling. Nonetheless, without having to resolve these issues, one can still ask how EC theories might contribute to our understanding of practice and performance. I note, importantly, however, that this is not a one-way inquiry. That is, studies of practice and performance can inform EC theory, and in fact, may contribute to clarifying some of the issues and perhaps settling some of the debates on the theoretical side.

EC and expert practice

Notions of EC have been useful for defining expertise – and I think this is a good bridge to help us cross over to issues that involve performance in areas such as music and dance. Dreyfus (2005) and Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980), for example, drawing on ideas from Merleau-Ponty, defines a set of stages in accomplishing expertise modelled on embodied coping (the body interacting with the environment).

1. Novice practitioner – this stage is characterised by “rigid adherence to taught rules or plans”.

2. Advanced beginner – marks improvement over the novice stage, but still lacks any subtle discrimination.

3. Competent practitioner – works with more information and starts to see different applications; such practitioners can plan out a routine.

4. Proficient practitioner – gains a holistic view of situations and prioritises important features; such practitioners can adapt to the situation at hand.

5. Expert practitioner – transcends the rules and has an “intuitive grasp of situations based on deep, tacit understanding”.

On Dreyfus's account engagement in embodied practice leads to habit formation where doing becomes automatic, without the necessity of reflection or thought. That is, the expert practitioner, in any realm, from playing tennis, to playing chess, to doing mathematics, does not have to think about what to do – she has an intuitive and automatic insight into how to move or what needs to be done. For Dreyfus, this is so much the case that reflective consciousness of one's doing may in fact disrupt the practice. As Beilock (2010) puts it, “highly practiced skills become automatic, so performance may actually be damaged by introspection, which is characteristic of an earlier, consciously-mediated stage”. For Dreyfus (2005), expert performance is mindless, if we understand “mind” in the traditional way. To the extent that the mind is embodied, it is non-representational. Thus, Dreyfus (2002) argues that for practiced or skillful intentional action one does not require representation.

A phenomenology of skill acquisition confirms that, as one acquires expertise, the acquired know-how is experienced as finer and finer discriminations of situations paired with the appropriate response to each. Maximal grip [a concept discussed by Merleau-Ponty] names the body’s tendency to refine its responses so as to bring the current situation closer to an optimal gestalt. Thus, successful learning and action do not require propositional mental representations. They do not require semantically interpretable brain representations either. (2002, p. 367)

Dreyfus associates the idea of representation, and the traditional concept of mind, with a failed Cartesian philosophy – bound up with epistemic states of knowing-that (propositional knowledge), when everything about intelligent action and knowing-how depends on being-in-the-world (rather than standing back and representing the world) and on context – both background and immediate context. In this regard Dreyfus comes close to the enactivist view of EC. For both Dreyfus and Merleau-Ponty, mind, understood as non-representational embodied mind, is not excluded from movement, but redefined as the expression of an embodied intelligence.

At the same time, Dreyfus over-emphasises the lack of reflection and thought in expert performance. In this respect, he has been subject to a number of critiques based on the study of sport-, dance- and music-performance. John Sutton, for example, taking his direction from sports performance, has proposed what he calls the “AIR” model: “applying intelligence to the reflexes” (Sutton et al., 2011). On this model, expert performance is not without some sort of reflection. A player of cricket, for example, with less than half a second to execute hitting a hard fast ball travelling at 140 km/h, draws not only on smoothly practiced batting, but also on context and conditions relevant to the game, in order to hit a shot with extraordinary precision through a slim gap in the field. “It's fast enough to be a reflex, yet it is perfectly context-sensitive. This kind of context-sensitivity, we suggest, requires some forms of mindedness … [an] interpenetration of thought and action exemplified in such open skills” (Sutton et al., 2011, p. 80). The expert cricket player is not on automatic pilot – he has trained up his body-schematic control of movement, but what he needs to do in the context of a game is not automatic.

Skill is not a matter of bypassing explicit thought, to let habitual actions run entirely on their own, but of building and accessing flexible links between knowing and doing. The forms of thinking and remembering which can, in some circumstances, reach in to animate the subtle kinaesthetic mechanisms of skilled performance must themselves be redescribed as active and dynamic. Thought, again, is not an inner realm behind practical skill, but an intrinsic and worldly aspect of our real-time engagement in complex physical and cultural activities  … . So expert performers precisely counteract automaticity, because it limits their ability to make specific adjustments on the fly  … . Just because skillful action is usually pre-reflective, it does not have to be mindless. (Sutton et al., 2011, p. 95)

Automatic control has limited ability to cope with variability; skill requires the flexibility provided by cognitive processes (Christensen, Sutton, & McIlwain, 2015, 2016). The cognitive processes at stake, however, are not heavy reflective processes, but awareness of the situation and a performative awareness (see below) that mesh with a performative know-how. This is not an awareness of detailed motoric processes (such processes are trained into the body schema), but selective target control for features, such as the goal of the action, or parameters of execution (timing, force, etc.) (Christensen et al., 2016). The consolidation of fine motoric details in body-schematic processes allows for this type of minimal and targeted reflective awareness.

Artistic performance

Montero (2012, 2016) offers a similar critique of Dreyfus, drawing on her own experience as a former professional ballet-dancer. She rejects the idea that expert performance somehow is effortless or thoughtless. She argues that although certain types of bodily awareness may interfere with well-developed skills, it is typically not detrimental to the skills of expert athletes or performing artists. A form of performance thinking is generally better than not thinking. Montero examines a number of scientific studies that purport to show that paying attention to certain bodily aspects of performance will interfere with performance. She contends that the studies are not ecological – that is, they introduce types of cognitive efforts that are simply not found in usual practice – e.g. one study asks a player to pay constant attention to his feet as he dribbles a football (e.g. Ford, Hodges, & Williams, 2005). She also cites qualitative studies that indicate that certain types of conscious monitoring (different in different performances) improve performance. Likewise, reports from experts confirm this. Timothy Gallwey, a pro-tennis player observes that:

when you increase your stroke speed to normal and begin hitting, you may be particularly aware of certain muscles. For instance, when I hit my backhands, I am aware that my shoulder muscle rather than my forearm is pulling my arm through  … . Similarly, on my forehand I am particularly aware of my triceps when my racket is below the ball. (cited in Montero, 2015, p. 135)

How precisely is one conscious of such things? I have argued that it involves a pre-reflective pragmatic self-awareness that does not take the body as an intentional object; a “performative awareness … that provides a sense that one is moving or doing something, not in terms that are explicitly about body parts, but in terms closer to the goal of the action” (Gallagher, 2005b, p. 73). Legrand (2007), following up on the notion of performative awareness, distinguishes between three types of attention focused on the body:

Opaque: which is thematic, reflective and objectifying, and characterises a novice performance when someone is learning to move in dance or music.

Transparent: when the body is experienced nonthematically, prereflectively and as an aspect of the acting subject – as in everyday walking.

Performative: (as in expert dancers): “A dancer is very concerned with his body and while dancing he is intensively attending to it. But he is not attending to it reflectively as an object. Rather, his awareness of his body as subject is heightened” (Legrand, 2007, p. 512).

Expertise can put this subjective character of experience “at the front” of one's experience without turning experience or action into a mere intentional object (see Toner, Montero, & Moran, 2016).

With respect to musical performance, cellist Ingal Segev emphasises the importance of keeping one's actions in the conscious mind: “my teacher [Bernard Greenhouse], would say, ‘don't let the music lead you; you need to direct it’” (cited in Montero, 2015, p. 136). Montero interprets this as follows:

The idea that you should get lost in the music and simply let it lead you was mistaken, she thinks, as it proscribes thought. If being in the zone for a musical performance means performing at one’s best, being in the zone according to Ingal means, it seems, extensive conscious thought about what to do and when to do it. (2015, p. 136)

Montero allows for the possibility that high performers occasionally enter a mindless zone when engaged in optimal performance. She also allows for the possibility that it is generally true that optimal performance coincides with thoughtful performance. This view is reinforced by a recent study of expert music performance by Høffding (2015).

Høffding worked with the Danish String Quartet, conducting phenomenological interviews – interviews that focus on the precise experiences the musicians have while playing their best. Each member of the quartet had different experiences while playing, but all of them reported that they could be thinking of or experiencing different things.

[…] expert musicians can undergo a wide range of different experiences while playing, from thinking about where to go for beers after the performance, to worrying whether one’s facial expression looks interesting to the audience, to enjoying the fact that the playing seems to be unfolding smoothly, and finally to a deep absorption in which one experiences a profound transformation of consciousness. (Høffding, 2015, pp. 11–12)

Høffding (2015, p. 129ff) distinguishes between four different states of awareness in expert performance. The first two are experienced in standard expert playing (where the performer may be thinking of different things).

1. Absent-minded playing (automatic performance; where the body carries on without monitoring).

2. Playing under stress (e.g. after interruption) and striving to get back – “just barely keeping up without missing the notes, yet coping nevertheless, managing to perform without mistakes”.

The second two are experienced while playing in deep absorption.

1. Blackout: lack of self-awareness.

2. Heightened awareness of self and surroundings.

The phenomenologically evidenced fact that there are different possible conscious states while engaged in performance goes against Dreyfus's exclusion of awareness or thought. The phenomenological details are telling in this respect. Focusing on deep absorption, Høffding's musicians suggest modulations in the sense of agency: a diminished sense of agency in blackout, and an increased sense of agency in heightened awareness. More precisely, in both states of absorption there is a certain letting go that involves passivity. Even with increased sense of control in heightened awareness, the performer does not intervene in the process, but lets it happen.

EC in performance: four factors

Høffding's analysis points to four factors that account for the performance being carried along in a way that involves this kind of passivity: body-schematic processes; affect (emotion); the music itself; the other players (Høffding, 2015, p. 177ff). I want to suggest that these factors are not entirely reflective of passivity, but that there is a dynamical interrelation among these factors that also reflect the centrality of bodily action that is involved in the intentionality of the performance itself. I will try to show how these factors are, in some important respects integrated, in ways that play off the first factor, the body schema.

The body schema is attuned by practice so that one can simply play “from the body schema” in a way that allows one to forget about many details of the performance, thereby giving one freedom to focus on selective target control. Members of the quartet report: “You let the body function on its own”. “You're surprised about how much the fingers remember themselves. Let the fingers play … . Let go and think about something else” (Høffding, 2015, p. 180). As Bowman (2004, p. 44) suggests:

Developing skillful musical agency entails assuming and assimilating embodied stances, postures, and movements. In becoming skilled musicians, students assimilate the corporeal postures and gestures of teachers – making them their own, weaving them into the dense fabric of their own embodied identity.

Body-schematic attunement alone, however, is not sufficient for expert performance. Affect is also important, and as Høffding suggests, in some cases indicates a difference between musical performance and athletic performance. “With … the emotions, prima facie, we have reason to differentiate the phenomenology of artistic absorption from athletic absorption” (Høffding, 2015, p. 191). As I understand this claim, Høffding does not think that athletic performance lacks emotion (one only needs to play ice hockey once to understand that emotion plays an important role), but rather that emotion (and the other factors – body schema, the music, intersubjective interactions) work differently in musical performance. In this respect, at least in part, the important differences may have to do with the way that these factors interrelate with each other. With respect to emotion, for example, we may want to distinguish between instrumental action (primarily under body-schematic control), and expressive movement. Aspects of emotion in expressive movement, as found in acting, dance and musical performance, can work like gesture and language in a way that goes beyond simple motor control, but also requires it.¹

Affect/emotion in relation to music goes in two directions. First, music allows us to explore or develop or regulate emotion in a new way; second, we “offload” some of the power of emotion in the playing of music (Krueger, 2014). If emotion in some cases drives expressive movement during music performance, however, we should not think that it does so independently of the body schema. It is not the case that the body schema carries on independently, delivering technically proficient movement, to which we then add an expressive style motivated by specific emotions relative to the occasion. The expressive style is already integrated into the movement. One could also think that emotion may have its effect directly on body-schematic processes – slowing down or speeding up such processes, for example, or leading to the adoption of certain initial postures that may influence the performance.

The music itself plays an important part in the performance process. We may think of this aspect in terms of the extended mind idea, although music clearly ignores internal versus external boundaries. As performers we can get caught up in the music itself. Many studies show that we incorporate tools and instruments into our body schema, or that we extend our body schema into such instruments (e.g. Maravita & Iriki, 2004). On the one hand, therefore, we may think that body-schematic processes add to the music itself as it is generated in the musical instruments. On the other hand, it goes deeper than this: music moves us; it is something that engages the body schema through its links to rhythm, material resonance, muscle, movement and action.

The sounds of music enter the body and are sensed, felt, and experienced inside the body in a way that, on the whole, the media of other artistic and cultural forms are not. And if one accepts the notion of affordance, then it is not a big step to realizing that there is an element of direct material leverage in the manner in which the sounds of music serve to construct and position individuals in their embodied, everyday lives. (John Shepherd, 2002, cited in Bowman, 2004, p. 40)

Finally, the other players enter the performance. In the context of making music together, Høffding takes music and intersubjectivity to be interrelated. To specify this in a way that Høffding does not, we can explicate this relation in the light of the recent research that shows while working (or playing) together (in joint action) we form “joint body schemas” (Soliman & Glenberg, 2014), and that one's peripersonal space extends to include, not just instruments, but other people we are playing with. Moreover, as we learn from developmental studies, our body-schematic processes and our social interactions may involve what Trevarthen calls intersubjective musicality. Intersubjective musicality is involved in our very first way of communicating – as in infant–caregiver interactions.

Music moves us because we hear human intentions, thoughts and feelings moving in it, and because we appreciate their urgency and harmony. It excites motives and thoughts that animate our conscious acting  … . It appeals to emotions  … . Evidently a feeling for music is part of the adaptations of the human species for acting in a human-made world; part, too, of how cultural symbols and languages are fabricated and learned. (Trevarthen, Delafield-Butt, & Schögler, 2011, p. 12)

Bowman (2004) makes a similar point, contending that this process starts even before birth.

It is important to begin, I think, with the sonorous roots of music and musical significance: with the way the human body is hardwired for sound, and the potential relevance of such phenomenal facts for musical experience. The world of the ear is one we first inhabit three months before birth. Well before we have begun to explore (or create?) the world with our eyes, imparting to it the clarity and objectivity characteristic of visual experience, we experience and interpret our world through the polyvalence of sound. (Bowman, 2004, p. 37)

Conclusion

In these previous paragraphs I have been emphasising a holistic interrelationship between the four factors that Høffding identifies as involved in a kind of performative passivity. If it is difficult to pull apart this passivity (“letting it happen”) from the activity of the performance itself, which involves, as suggested by Segev and her teacher Greenhouse, some form of active direction, this simply reflects the dynamical process involved in embodied performance, which in turn depends on an integration that is clearly mapped out in EC accounts of body schematic, affective, extended and intersubjective aspects of perception, action and cognition – all of which are involved in performance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council grant [DP170102987].

Notes

1. The distinction between instrumental and expressive movement can be seen, for example, in a subject who lacks proprioception and full body-schematic control, and who can accomplish instrumental actions (e.g. picking up a glass) only by alternative use of vision and cognitive effort, but who nonetheless is able to gesture in communicative/expressive action without body schema, vision of gesture or cognitive effort (Cole, Gallagher, & McNeill, 2002).