Expression and Extended Cognition

TOM COCHRANE

Expression and Extended Cognition

It is typically granted that musical works can ex-press emotions independently of the occurrentemotional states of their performers or composers.Yet while the performer or composer need not ex-press his or her emotional state, it is still a valuethat may be effectively pursued, and for whichmusic is highly suitable. Moreover, I will argue forthe possibility of an extremely intimate connec-tion between the emotional content of the musicand the emotional state of the person who pro-duces that music. Under certain specified condi-tions, the music may not just influence but alsopartially constitute the musician’s emotional state.

In order to develop this idea I will need to makeseveral significant assumptions concerning the re-lation between music and emotions. First of all,as is argued by several current theories of emo-tion, I will assume that emotions are essentiallyconstituted by patterns of bodily changes. Thesepatterns of bodily changes are registered in thebrain, which then generates the felt experience ofthe emotion.1

Second, I will assume a version of the resem-blance theory of musical expression similar to thatoffered by Malcolm Budd. This position is summa-rized by the slogan “the music sounds the way theemotion feels.” Via a variety of resources (such asrhythm, timbre, melodic line), music is able to re-semble the dynamic and visceral qualities of bodilyfeelings.2

A third assumption is that these resemblancesare tracked by the same mechanism in the brainthat registers bodily changes in emotions. In sup-port of this claim, a connection has been madebetween the perception of musical expression andthe empathic simulation of the emotions of oth-ers.3 Yet these same empathic mechanisms arethe ones that are responsible for monitoring our

own bodily states.4 So the idea is that by resem-bling emotional activity (both in terms of behav-ioral movement and qualitative tension), musiccan hijack the mechanisms in the brain that areresponsible for tracking both our own emotionsand the emotions of others. As a result, when welisten to music we seem to perceive emotion in themusic.5

Clearly, these are rather large assumptions, forwhich I provide proper justification elsewhere.6

However, they will allow us to develop some veryinteresting possibilities. In particular they will al-low us to argue that music can potentially playthe same role as bodily changes in realizing themusician’s emotional state.

The claim that music can partially constitute amusician’s emotion also requires that the musiciancan control the content of the music in a very im-mediate and detailed way. Allowing for this levelof control leads me to focus on jazz improvisa-tion, which in many cases is dedicated to the goalof sincere emotional expression. I then explore theidea, common to the works of Benedetto Croce,R. G. Collingwood, and John Dewey, that the artistclarifies and develops his emotional state by ex-pressing it. Here I emphasize the essential roleof the artistic medium (in this case the musicalinstrument or the sounds produced) to that pro-cess. This then leads me to the theory of extendedcognition, which argues that the physical consti-tution of some mental states extends beyond thebrain of the subject. After showing how this the-ory applies to improvised performance, I then jus-tify two claims: First, that playing the instrumentcognitively extends the musician’s creation of themusic. Then second, and more significantly, thatplaying the music cognitively extends the musi-cian’s emotion.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66:4 Fall 2008c© 2008 The American Society for Aesthetics

330 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

The first claim is argued to be true of all casesof jazz improvisation. The second claim is onlytrue of a subset of cases, yet seems to be an im-portant goal of jazz performance. Given this, thesecond claim then breaks down into a stronger anda weaker version. The weaker version states thatthe music elaborates the emotional state of the mu-sician, playing the same role as his or her bodilychanges in generating and maintaining the patternof bodily changes. The stronger version is that themusic replaces the role of bodily changes as thecentral focus in generating emotional content.

Note that in neither case do I identify the emo-tion with the conscious experience of the emo-tion. Several theorists argue for the possibility ofunconscious emotions.7 So my claim here is onlythat the emotion is partially constituted by themusic, not the experience of the emotion. How-ever, we may say that in these situations, the mu-sician’s experience of the music can to a greateror lesser degree fulfill his or her experience of theemotion.

i. the musician’s emotion

One problem with the idea that works of musicgain their emotional content from the emotions oftheir composers is explaining how it is that feelinga certain way while producing a work is supposedto convey these characteristics to the work itself.Even in the more direct case of performance, itis not the case that the emotion of the musicianis necessarily transmitted to the work. In orderto explicate this, it is worth distinguishing severallevels at which the emotional state of the musicianmay affect the character of the music.

First of all, the musician may be in an emotionalstate prior to performance. Performing while inthat state then affects the character of the music.For instance, being anxious causes the musicianto make mistakes. A second possibility is that theemotional state of the musician affects the music insuch a way that the character of the emotion is re-flected in the character of the music. For instance,the musician feels anxious, and playing the musicin an anxious way causes the music to have ananxious character (perhaps a tremor in the handsleads to a tremor in the sound). A third possibil-ity is that the musician is in a relatively neutralstate prior to performance but is fully aroused bythe character of the music he is playing. It may

then follow that being infected by the character ofthe music affects the way the musician plays thatmusic. Finally, a fourth possibility further allowsthat this changed performance style transmits thequality of the musician’s emotion back to the mu-sic. Hence a feedback loop could be generatedwhereby the music arouses the state of the mu-sician, affecting the way he performs, which thenaffects the character of the music, potentially fur-ther arousing the musician and so on.

In all cases, we should note that the emotionof the musician need not enhance the expressivevalue of the music. There is a difference betweena musician’s aroused state affecting the perfor-mance and the musician using that arousal in a de-liberate and controlled way to enhance the perfor-mance. Different styles of music permit differentways in which this can happen. In particular, jazzemphasizes spontaneity and communication overtechnical accuracy. As such, this genre should per-mit greater levels of emotional arousal in the play-ers and a more immediate connection between thestate of the musician and the nature of the work.There are still limits of course. Jazz improvisationis not the pure spontaneous production of musicthat it is sometimes taken to be. In most casesthere is some kind of preplanned reference ma-terial such as a written chord structure, melodictheme, or background tonality that the musicianuses to guide his performance.

For now I take as my paradigm a relatively un-constrained solo improvisation style that, whilesticking to the stylistic forms of the jazz genre, im-poses no time constraints or adherence to a par-ticular chord structure. This should be of amplesufficiency to let the performer’s emotion signifi-cantly affect the character of the music (in detailsboth large and small) such that it corresponds tothe character of his feeling. It is thus closer tomodal or free jazz than bebop. I am not relianton this specific kind of improvisational style oreven on the jazz genre generally in order to justifymy claims. It is likely that other forms of impro-visational music may equally permit the kinds ofexpressive potential I argue for here. Yet I restrictmy attention to jazz improvisation, partly dueto my familiarity with this genre as a performerand listener, and partly because historically ithas emphasized the personal expression of themusician.8

This is not to say that musicians simply regur-gitate whatever they happen to be feeling at that

Cochrane Expression and Extended Cognition 331

exact moment in musical form. If this was all therewas to it, they could just as easily shout or groanwith the same expressive success. Rather it is alsopossible for musicians to use the music to self-reflectively construct their feelings, to control andtransform their felt states into something moreartistically profound. The expression theories ofCroce and Collingwood are well known for devel-oping ideas like this. We often see the claim thatart is geared toward revealing the emotional stateof the artist. In certain passages we even see thestronger claim that the artist does not simply dis-cover her emotional state by expressing it, but alsothat expression is crucial to forming that state.

[The painting] is produced by an activity which is some-how or other bound up with the development of that[aesthetic] experience itself. The two activities are notidentical; he distinguishes them by the names “painting”and “seeing” respectively; but they are connected in sucha way that, he assures us, each is conditional upon theother. . . . There is no question of “externalizing” an in-ward experience which is complete in itself and by itself.There are two experiences, an inward or imaginative onecalled seeing and an outward or bodily one called paint-ing, which in the painter’s life are inseparable, and formone single indivisible experience, an experience whichmay be described as painting imaginatively.9

Here Collingwood emphasizes that the act ofpainting and the aesthetic experience are not iden-tical, but are so closely related that they are expe-rienced as if they were indivisible. The two pro-cesses are interdependent, at least in certain cases.This suggests then that the act of expression en-ables the formation of the emotional state. We alsosee this view in Dewey, who explicitly rejects theidea that what is expressed is just an externaliza-tion of a preexisting emotional state. Rather it isphysical interaction with a resistant medium thatallows the emotion to be formed:

The thing expressed is wrung from the producer by thepressure exercised by objective things upon the naturalimpulses and tendencies—so far is expression from beingthe direct and immaculate issue of the latter. The thirdpoint follows. The act of expression that constitutes awork of art is a construction in time, not an instantaneousemission. . . . It means that the expression of the self inand through a medium, constituting the work of art isitself a prolonged interaction of something issuing fromthe self with objective conditions, a process in which

both of them acquire a form and order they did not atfirst possess. (emphasis added)10

I will largely leave aside here the debate aboutwhether Croce or Collingwood were idealistsabout artistic expression.11 I would simply like tonote the vital connection between the sort of ex-pression that is suggested by the above passagesand the actual physical production of the artwork.In general we should endorse the view that emo-tional expression in art is bound with its physi-cal means of production. As Richard Wollheimargues, the difficulties (and unpredictability) thataccompany the handling of the physical mediumare often a vital part of what makes the work ex-pressive.12 Moreover, any ideas that the artist hasprior to producing the object are ideas about howthe medium may be manipulated. They are ideasof the medium and presuppose its actual phys-ical characteristics. So, for instance, when a jazzmusician expresses her emotional state in perfor-mance, she must think of that emotion in distinctlymusical terms. It is the qualities and relations ob-tained by the actual physical sounds (sometimesaccidentally) that constitute her emotional lan-guage. Similarly, Aaron Ridley claims that “thepeculiar fluidity and grace and power of Bernini’sEcstasy of St. Theresa are inseparable from the factthat it has been almost caressed out of a piece ofstone.”13 Comparable arguments could be gener-ated for musical performances where the stretch-ing of a particular musical instrument’s capacitiesis part of what it is for that music to express anemotion such as boundless joy.

Moreover, artworks like improvised jazz per-formances are much more tied to their actual sin-gular occurrence than notational art forms likepoetry or scored music. The improviser does notget a second chance to replace what she has al-ready played with something more appropriate.Rather, the whole performance may be viewedas the struggle of the musician to articulate herstate, forming and reacting against the unalter-able characteristics of that very event. This is whatmakes the performance her expression in a waythat the rest of us can only appreciate rather thanreplicate. And ultimately it is the deep individu-ality of this kind of expression that really under-mines any claim to idealism, at least so far as thesekinds of artworks are concerned. This is becausewhat guarantees that a work captures an individ-ual emotional state is the unique physicality of its


expression, the fact that it is embodied in a par-ticular physical event by a particular person in aparticular set of circumstances.

The main reason I think Croce and Colling-wood come across as idealists is because theirconcern is to say the real work of art is a kindof mental state or process. Under most interpreta-tions of mind this would automatically imply thatthe public object could not be the real work of art,and so conflict with our basic intuitions about whatartworks are. Yet I think we can rescue as well asstrengthen some (though not all) of the insights oftheir position when we appeal to the theory of ex-tended cognition. As we shall see, it is possible forthe physical production of an artwork to be inte-grated with a cognitive process such that it is partof the artist’s mental state. As a result, we can holdon to our intuitions that physical objects and theiractual history of production are what constituteartworks while still embracing the possibility thatartists are focused on articulating mental states.

ii. extended cognition

In order to explain how extended cognition ap-plies to jazz improvisation it is necessary to pro-vide some background on the theory. Its locusclassicus is Andy Clark and David Chalmers’sinfluential paper “The Extended Mind” (thoughthey are indebted to externalist theories of mindgenerally).14 Their basic idea is that we often in-corporate external objects into our cognitive pro-cesses, the active manipulation of which enablesthe completion of various cognitive tasks. So, forexample, if I do some long division step-by-step ona piece of paper or if I rearrange Scrabble tiles inorder to find a word to play, I am exploiting theseinformation-rich features of the environment tosupport and supplement my cognitive processes.Hence they argue that these kinds of action are“epistemically active” in that they alter the worldfor the purpose of completing some cognitive taskrather than simply to enact some preconceivedchange that the subject intends.

It seems that many of our behaviors can beinterpreted in this light where the environmen-tal resource is reliable and easily available andthe subject automatically endorses the informa-tion it provides. A key part of arguments for ex-tended cognition (and externalist views of mindgenerally) then involves a supervenience claim: If

two identical cognitive processes or states inter-nal to the body can nevertheless have differentcontent due to differences external to the body,then the constitution of the mental state must par-tially supervene on those relevant aspects of theenvironment.

So, for instance, if the Scrabble tiles happenedto have been arranged differently, I would havecome up with a different word despite being inthe same internal “search” state. Obviously, thisdifference would then have impacted upon mybrain state when I recognized the word to play.The point is, however, that within a certain range, Iwould endorse whatever word the external processresulted in. My internal state, though an importantsource of control in choosing the word, is not doingall the relevant work in finding that word. Workis being done by objects outside my body, whichin combination with my actions and brain statephysically realize an extended cognitive system.As a final test we may ask whether if the sameprocess were done purely in the head (say imagi-natively moving Scrabble tiles around), we wouldbe happy to grant it cognitive status. If we would,then it seems to exclude the object as part of thecognitive process simply because it is located out-side the body is nothing more than a conceptualprejudice.

Clark and Chalmers go on to argue that not onlycan processes like recognition be cognitively ex-tended but also more definitive mental states suchas beliefs. Here they use the example of Otto, whohas Alzheimer’s disease and who uses a notebookto tell him the location of the museum. The note-book then functions as a part of Otto’s long-termmemory, which coupled with Otto’s dispositionto consult the notebook when considering the lo-cation of the museum, forms his belief that themuseum is on 53rd Street.15

We might worry that because Otto has to per-ceive visually the notebook in order to consciouslyhold his belief, it is quite unlike the direct andsubpersonal activity of accessing such informa-tion from our biological memories, especially sincethe visual image has a distinctive phenomenology.However Clark and Chalmers argue that becausethe flow of information from notebook to brainis all part of the same cognitive system, it is notperceptual at all in the sense of “registering the im-pact of something outside the system.”16 Further-more, the phenomenology of retrieving the infor-mation is not particularly relevant to its status as


a belief. We could equally suppose that if a soundaccompanied the introspective access of our bio-logical memories, those memories would no lessform a part of our beliefs. Moreover, Otto’s be-lief is not constituted by an internal mental rep-resentation of the page in his notebook or thedisposition to form such a representation. Ratherit is the active exploitation of the information thenotebook provides (that happens to be visuallyreceived) with additional internal processes (suchas the subject’s endorsement) that together com-plete a system realizing the cognitive function.

So there is a general sense of representationthat is distinct from the acquisition of internalrepresentational states.17 Otto’s extended systemfunctions as a whole to represent where the mu-seum is. Note that if we were to secretly changewhat is written in Otto’s notebook, he would ef-fectively gain a new belief state (because he al-ways endorses what it says in the notebook). Sincethis external feature alone determines a differentmental state, in accordance with superveniencewe must identify that feature as partially realiz-ing his mental state. Moreover, these differenceswould not necessarily have to impact on Otto’sinternal brain state to do all the work that beliefsdo. For instance, someone could ask Otto wherethe museum is, and he could simply show her therelevant page in his notebook, without having tolook at it himself and say, “That is where I thinkit is.”

iii. jazz improvisation as extended cognition

Having briefly explained the theory of extendedcognition, we may now begin to see how it appliesto the case of jazz improvisation. My overall strat-egy here is to show how the improvising jazz mu-sician can go through a process of emotional ex-pression much as Croce, Collingwood, and Deweydescribed, while emphasizing that this act of ex-pression is realized by the physical interaction be-tween the musician, his instrument, and the music.So forming the emotion by expressing it in musicis a cognitively extended process. Before we dealwith emotional expression, however, it is neces-sary to first show how the musician can developsuch a close relationship with the music. This ismy first claim, that playing the instrument cogni-tively extends the musician’s creation of the music.Hence I begin with a universal claim that simply

improvising, apart from any concerns about hav-ing a real emotion, is a form of extended cognition.It is this view that music psychologist Eric Clarkeseems to be endorsing when he says that “playingmusic is a concrete form of musical thinking, andthe body is as much a part of finding out aboutmusic as it is a means for its actualization.”18

If we consider the simple task of generatingnotes, it is clear that the musician’s interactionwith his instrument allows him to do this, not justin the uninteresting sense that the musician needsthe instrument to produce notes at all, but also thatthe particular way in which the notes are formedis a matter of sensitively responding to the capaci-ties and affordances of the physical object. It is notthe case that the musician always has some musicin mind (either as sound or in symbolic form) thathe just enacts on the instrument. Moreover, evenif the performer does have a rough idea of whatsound he wants to produce, there are many fea-tures of that sound that go beyond his concept ofit, yet which he would still endorse as the soundhe wanted to play.

At every level of creative decisions the musicianand his instrument form a single tightly coupledsystem. For example, certain qualitative featuresof the sound may just be a product of the waythe instrument is set up. It might have a harsh orsmooth tone, for instance. So the instrument itselfhelps to decide the character of each note that themusician then endorses. The way the instrumentis physically set up also constrains and encour-ages ways that notes can be strung together. Somemusical figures will fall more naturally under themusician’s fingers, particularly when he is playingvery fast. In addition, building up a vocabularyof musical figures is something done on the in-strument by exploring its physical capacities. Thisdevelopment then allows the expansion of the mu-sician’s imaginative capacities in terms of what ispossible to play.

In addition, within the immediate context ofperformance there is the sense in which the musi-cian may only have a rough idea of what he wantsto play, for instance a fast upwards sequence ofnotes, but it is the interaction of his fingers with thekeys that ultimately determines what exact notesare played. Thus when completing the cognitivetask of choosing what exact notes to play, the in-strument is part of an extended loop between themusician’s brain, the muscles in his hands or lips,and the keys of the instrument. As in the Scrabble


example, within a certain range, the musician auto-matically endorses whatever the external physicalprocesses result in.

There is then a further level at which themusician’s conscious interaction with the musicdetermines what he will play next. Similar to theinstrument, the music itself will present certainlimitations and affordances to the musician interms of what sounds could follow in a musicallycoherent or meaningful way. I call this a senseof the music’s potential. It is an experience of themusic’s temporal development, which to the expe-rienced listener suggests constraints at every mo-ment concerning how the music can progress givenwhat has already happened. Thus music can gainpotential in terms of building harmonic tensionthat can be resolved by returning to the home key,or in terms of developing a theme before eventualrecapitulation, as well as in terms of maintainingtempo, rhythmic pulse, and note durations, as wellas developing general dynamic shapes like build-ing to a climax or fading away. We should notethat the musician must perceive these qualities inorder to react to them, and their perception re-lies on certain standards he has acquired concern-ing harmonic or rhythmic development. Yet at thesame time the musician may not have planned anyof these qualities. They may simply be the unex-pected consequences of other musical decisionshe has made.

Many features of the expressive character of themusic can equally be unplanned and can gener-ate their own form of potential, in terms of main-taining an emotional character or developing it tocompletion or exhaustion. The resemblance the-ory of musical expression allows that the expres-sive character of the music be conveyed by fea-tures at every level of detail, from the intensitywith which individual notes are attacked to thesmoothness of the timbre, the rhythmic pulse, andharmonic tension as well as the large-scale formalstructure. It is thus highly unlikely that the musi-cian can anticipate and control all of these poten-tial sources of expressive effect. In many cases hecan only react to the precise expressive characterthe music suggests. Yet he can still intelligibly takeresponsibility for the exact expressive qualities ofthe sound. Though the music possesses a wide vari-ety of subtle expressive qualities that the musiciandid not plan or predict, he can, like Otto and hisnotebook, still point to the music and endorse theexpression of that.

So overall, these features of the music forman information-rich environment that the musi-cian relies on when deciding what will happennext. In this way the music and musician forma cognitively extended system where the musicpresents certain information about what soundsare available, which combines with the musician’sendorsement of these possibilities to enable andenhance the cognitive task of generating musicalsounds. The musician’s endorsement of these pos-sibilities relies on his musical intentions. So a di-alogue is set up between his intentions and hissense of musical potential. The key difference be-tween the two is that a musical intention is anidea that the musician has about how the musicshould sound in the future. The musical poten-tial, in contrast, is an idea about how the musicwill sound in the future so long as it is not dis-rupted either by mistakes or contrary intentions.Also, where musical potential is something actu-ally heard and anticipated, musical intentions areimaginative and creative. So a central componentin the experience of performing music concernsthe relative alignment of musical intentions withmusical potential. In the usual case the performerexperiences a tension between his idea of what themusic should sound like (perhaps determined bysome mood he is trying to capture, or some struc-tural concept he has) and what possibilities thesound itself seems to suggest or allow. A musiciancan also choose to violate what he regards as themusical potential for expressive effect. He could,for instance, suddenly play louder in a melodythat is fading into silence, breaking an intuitiveconstraint.19

Altogether then my claim that playing the in-strument cognitively extends the musician’s cre-ation of the music works at three levels, someor all of which are present in all improvised per-formances: The physical interaction between themusician and the instrument achieves the task ofgenerating the detailed notes. The interaction be-tween the musician’s intentions and the perceivedpotential of the music determines the larger scaleshape and style of the music. Finally, the inter-action between the musician’s intentions and per-ceived emotional potential determines the expres-sive character of the music, affecting the soundat all levels of detail. All of this is analogous toperforming long division step-by-step on a pieceof paper or rearranging Scrabble tiles in order tofind a word to play.


iv. emotion generation as extended cognition

Having justified my claim that creating the musicis cognitively extended, we can now turn to mysecond claim: that the musician may use the musicto cognitively extend the formation of his or heremotions. My explanation of how this is done canbe derived from the case of ordinary emotionalexpression.

If we assume that bodily changes are what con-stitute emotional states, we must equally includebehavioral expressions such as posture, bodily ges-tures, and facial and vocal expressions.20 All ofthese behaviors will contribute to the overall pat-tern of bodily changes and thus to the felt ex-perience of the emotion. As a result, the sub-ject can to some extent take direct control ofher emotional state by deliberately manipulat-ing her expressive behaviors. Psychologist JamesLaird has reviewed over a hundred empiricalstudies that have verified a causal link betweensuch manipulation and both self-reported andmeasured levels of emotional arousal.21 For ex-ample, most relevant to my claims, subjects in-structed to speak in loud, harsh tones reportconsequent feelings of anger whereas those in-structed to speak in low, soft tones report moresadness.22

In many cases, experimenters disguise the goalsof the study in order to ensure that the inducedfeelings are not the result of the desire of the par-ticipant to comply with the experimenter. So be-cause the participants are not aware that their ex-pressions are manipulating their emotions, theseexpressions constitute in Collingwood’s terms amere betrayal of emotion rather than emotionalexpression properly so called. However, Lairdclaims that the robustness of the effect makes de-ception on the part of the experimenter unneces-sary. Accordingly, in another experiment partici-pants were instructed simply to “please smile inthe way you usually do,” resulting in changes inemotional arousal despite the participants’ disbe-lief in the effectiveness of such behavior.23 Thiskind of deliberate expressive behavior would bet-ter fit Collingwood’s account.

The point that Croce, Collingwood, and Deweymake is that we reveal or even generate the emo-tion by artistic expression. When we emphasizethat expressive behaviors count as bodily changesand are thus partly constitutive of the emotion,we can see how the deliberate manipulation of

expressive behaviors can similarly serve to bothreveal and generate the emotion in a direct way.It is, in fact, quite commonplace to adjust one’semotional behavior, and in doing so attempt toadjust one’s emotional state. For example, whenone is nervous, perhaps when walking to the lec-ture hall to deliver a paper, one may deliber-ately adjust one’s posture and walking speed tobe more upright and sure-footed. One could al-ternatively “embrace” the nerves by bounding upto the podium as energetically as possible. Suchactivities may be more or less effective but are cer-tainly plausible given the classic Jamesian notionthat “we feel sorry because we cry, angry becausewe strike.”24

So instead of allowing oneself to be over-come with rage, deliberate expressive behaviorcan channel or focus that feeling with a highly con-trolled activity, which generates a sense of poweror regularity. Alternatively, one may try to relaxone’s muscles, move around gently, or speak moreslowly and quietly, generating a sense of calm.We should also note that not all appropriate emo-tional responses involve some kind of immediatemodification of one’s situation. Many involve con-templation of the emotional state and the strug-gle to accommodate it within one’s life projects.We may ask ourselves, is this emotion rational orbeneficial to my goals? Should I therefore try tosublimate it or allow it to blossom? Expressivebehavior is a way in which we can ask ourselvesthese questions. By directly modifying the bod-ily pattern and monitoring the results, we can ex-periment with the emotional state, adjusting one’sfeeling as seems appropriate. Thus, expression canallow a more sensitive response to one’s situation.In this way, the subject can effectively use herbehavioral expression to directly “think through”her emotional state.

Now by suggesting that expressive behavior al-lows one to “think through” one’s emotion, thesense of cognition that I appeal to here is thatit is a process in which one actively manipulatesmental states, rather than anything that essentiallyinvolves concepts.25 This sense of cognition is com-patible with an entirely somatic theory of emo-tions, since, although we are generally the passiverecipients of our emotional states, it is possiblefor us to actively manipulate our pattern of bod-ily changes, or more directly the neural model ofsuch changes. This is what I suggest can occur inthe case of improvisation.


When it comes to music then, the basic argu-ment is that an improvised performance can par-tially constitute an emotional state because themusic can fulfill the same role for the musician asthe behavioral expression of emotion. The way itfeels to cry or shout or jump for joy is a distinctivepart of what it feels like to be sad, angry, or joyful.In the same way, it feels like something to producesounds on an instrument. To strike or blow thenotes gently or aggressively directly arouses thecorresponding bodily feeling. More importantlythough, the resemblance between music and emo-tion potentially allows the musician to identifythe sounds she produces as part of her emotionalfeeling. This is because the resemblance theory Ihave adopted states that the patterns in the mu-sic are mapped by the musician’s brain as if theywere patterns of emotional feeling, causing herto hear emotion in the music. The brain of themusician treats the patterns in the music equiva-lently to patterns of bodily changes. So if the bodilychanges are part of the emotion, might not the mu-sical changes be functionally equivalent and thusequally part of the emotion?

One objection may be that if the map of bod-ily changes in the brain is not supported by ac-tual bodily changes, the resulting state is not a realemotional state. But here the relation between theneural maps involved in emotions and the bodilychanges that they map should be clarified. Anto-nio Damasio describes how the neural map mayserve in everyday emotional episodes to antici-pate actual bodily changes.26 This allows a moreimmediate emotional experience and behavioralresponse to be organized. Hence the mere fact thatthe brain is not mapping actual bodily changesneed not be a barrier to the authenticity of theemotion.

Yet while the neural map of changes is suffi-cient for feeling, we still include the various bodilychanges as part of the emotional state when theydo occur. This is because the kind of emotional ex-perience that the neural map generates is likely tobe highly attenuated where it is not supported byconstant bodily changes. In general, the variousbodily changes are what generate and maintainthe content of the emotion, where the neural mapmerely registers that content. The neural map islike the manager of a company, where the workdone by the company as a whole is what consti-tutes the mental state. Certainly the neural map isa very important stage in the system where vari-

ous content converges. This is an important stepbefore going on to interpret that content, directthe attention of the subject, stimulate behaviors,and connect to other mental states. Yet the bod-ily changes are doing a lot of the work for thatemotional state.

Damasio also identifies the same neural mapat work in the recognition of other people’s emo-tional states. As such, what distinguishes whetherthe neural map helps to realize a real emotionor an empathic state is not whether it tracks realor simulated bodily changes, but whether the sys-tem as a whole is triggered by a situation bearingon the well-being of the subject or the expressedstate of another (or even a fictional expression ofemotion). In the case of the improvising musician,there is no reason that the feelings expressed bythe music cannot track the real situation of themusician. The musician can produce those soundsas a direct result of confronting some situation.The music could even be both the object of anemotional state (for instance, how well one is play-ing) and self-reflectively the emotional responseto that object. Yet there is no reason why the mu-sician cannot also be responding to some otheraspect of the environment, such as the audiencereaction, or any thought or imaginative idea shemight have at the same time.

A second reason we can identify the musicalpatterns as part of the musician’s emotion con-cerns the control that the subject has over theemotion-generating process, which determineswhether the state is partly cognitive or a purelypassive reaction. Since the musician is responsiblefor producing and endorsing the emotional con-tent of the music, this entails that the musician iscognitively deliberating her emotional reaction, inthe same way as deliberately engaging in expres-sive actions allows the cognition of emotions. Thesense of control or agency over the emotional con-tent of the music encourages a conscious identifi-cation with its content, unlike the case of simplylistening to expressive music, where the listenermust submit to its flow.

v. the relation between musical

and bodily changes

So what of the actual bodily changes of the mu-sician in this case? In the first place, the bodilychanges of the musician help to generate the inten-tions of the musician to appropriately match the


way he feels in the music. The musician’s sensitiv-ity to the expressive qualities of the music can alsoarouse his bodily changes in turn, as I describedearlier. Thus a dialogue can be set up between themusical potential in emotional terms and the innerbodily changes of the musician.

Consider then how the musician starts his im-provisation: He could just wait beside his instru-ment and contemplate his emotional feelings be-fore launching into a solo that he feels reflectsthese feelings, or as seems more likely, he will juststart playing in a very impulsive way and then al-low his sensitivity to the music to develop into asense of emotion. Either way, there is a constantfeedback between the musician’s inner changesand the expressive character he perceives in themusic.

However, if this was all there was to it, we mightcomplain that the inner bodily changes of the mu-sician already constitute his emotional state. Themusic merely influences that state, or is influencedby the state in turn. So while we could admit a closerelation between the two, we need not say thatthe music partially constitutes the musician’s emo-tion.27 Yet this criticism can be met on two levels:First of all, by tracking the music with his arousedbodily changes and then reacting to maintain ordevelop the unplanned emotional character of thesound, the musician is endorsing whatever emo-tional content the music suggests. The music hasdirect control over what the content of the emo-tional state is. This is analogous to endorsing what-ever it says in the notebook. So where we conceiveof the emotion as a cognitive process of decidingwhat to feel, the music itself plays a vital role inenabling and enhancing this process.

Note that in the case I describe the musiciancannot manipulate his emotional state directly.He can only send a signal from the brain, to hishands, to the instrument, to the music, which hethen hears and interprets as feelings. So he simplycannot cognize his emotion without actually ma-nipulating the music. Suppose the musician hadan identical twin whose brain is in a vat, so withexactly the same brain state, sending out exactlythe same signals, and receiving exactly the samefelt feedback. Yet in this case the music is absentor changes in the music are independent of hisinstructions. This twin would be undergoing a dif-ferent mental state. The twin subject would not becognizing his emotion. He would be having a pas-sive emotional reaction, since he would not be in

control of manipulating his emotional representa-tions at all. His feelings would be occurring quiteindependently of his attempt to control them. Sogiven that changes in the music alone entail a dif-ferent sort of mental state, the music must be aphysical part of the cognition of feeling.

However, we may draw a distinction betweendeciding what emotion to have and the emotion it-self, just as we may draw a distinction between de-ciding to perform an action and the bodily changesthat this action generates. So second, it is impor-tant to note that the music is also immediatelyincorporated into the musician’s emotion via hisneural map. That is, the musician enjoys the feel-ings expressed by the music alongside his internalbodily changes as the total combined emotionalstate. The patterns in the music effectively playthe same role as his inner bodily changes in relat-ing to the overall bodily pattern. I argued abovethat bodily changes should be included as a con-stitutive part of the emotional system. This waspartly because they do vital work in generatingand maintaining the emotional content. The musi-cal patterns equally do significant work in generat-ing and maintaining the emotional content wherethe musician’s brain simply endorses that content.So equally we should include the music as a consti-tutive part of the emotion. The music constitutespart of the content that is registered in forming theoverall representational state.

In this case the music constitutes a physical elab-oration of the musician’s felt state. Phenomenallythe musician partially experiences his emotionalstate in musical form. Of course, the qualities ofthe music are then registered by the musician’sbrain. Yet actual bodily changes are equally reg-istered by the musician’s brain. In either case theemotion is physically constituted by the systemthat incorporates both the neural map and thebodily or musical changes that sustain it. Then inthe case I have been describing, there is interac-tion between all these parts. So we may say thatthe emotion is constituted by the entire systemof bodily map in the brain, bodily changes, bod-ily actions, the activity of the instrument, and thepatterns in the music. The vehicle of brain, body,instrument, and music then supports this systemfor generating the content of the emotion.

In general, one of the main motivations forincluding an external object as part of a cogni-tive process is that it should enhance that cog-nitive process, and not merely enact the results


of some internal process. In this case, when themusic is used to extend emotional cognition, it en-hances the complexity of the emotion the musicianundergoes. Expressive actions can generate pat-terns more fine grained than inner bodily changes.Equally musical expressions can generate patternsfar more fine grained than expressive actions. Themusical expression of emotion can have increasedcomplexity, temporal range, subtlety, and force. Itcan also have long-term structural content as aresult of the repetition and development of mo-tifs. As such, the music enhances the emotionalresponse of the musician. His emotional responseto the world can be that much more structured,subtle, or intense.

vi. music as the core of emotion

So far, I have justified a weaker version of myclaim that the music partially constitutes the emo-tional state of the performer. The core of the emo-tional state is still the internal bodily changes ofthe musician, which the music then elaborates.However, there are some cases in which the mu-sic appears to replace the bodily changes of thesubject as the main focus of the emotional state.These are cases of radical absorption within theemotional progression of the music.

Earlier I described a dialogue between the in-tentions of the musician and the potential per-ceived in the music. In most cases, the intentions ofthe musician are not perfectly realized. So wherethe intentions and potential are experienced inemotional terms, the musician may feel a tensionbetween her bodily feeling and the music’s ex-pressive content (this would amount to a mixedfeeling). Yet it is possible for the musician’s inten-tions to align with the emotional potential of themusic in such a way that the intentions of the mu-sician effectively disappear. Alignment may occureither because the musician finds that her emo-tional intentions are immediately realized in mu-sic or because she gives up trying to control themusic and simply affirms the progression of themusic as it happens. This kind of alignment is rare,though claims that musicians themselves makeprovide some evidence that this does take place.Note that the following descriptions are clearlyimpressionistic and suggestive rather than conclu-sive demonstrations of my claims. Yet they seembest explained by the theoretical apparatus I havesuggested:

I feel that I’m at my best when I can free myself com-pletely from the effort of trying to put something outand feel more like I am the instrument being played.28

Similarly:

If a solo is going well, developing, I let it go on its own.Then I’ve reached that place where I’ve gotten out of myown way, and it’s as if I’m standing back and watchingthe solo play itself.29

Again:

I dance with it. That’s my emotional state when I play.That’s my feeling of expressing my total self in themusic.30

In many ways, these experiences seem to rep-resent one of the peaks of musical achievement.This is because while it is not so hard to play thenote one intends to play a fraction of a secondearlier, especially if one has modest ambitions, itis extremely difficult to temporally align one’s in-tentions with the moment of actually producingthem, or to suspend one’s critical judgment ofwhat one is playing. When this does happen wemay say that the perception of the music fully ab-sorbs the attention of the musician. So the musictakes the lead, or becomes the locus of controlfor how the emotion of the musician will progress(though, of course, in performing that music, themusician overall is still in control).

Yet if the musician “loses” herself in the music,such that she is no longer aware of her internalfeelings, what allows us to say that the musicianis feeling any emotion at all? Is the experienceof “watching the solo play itself” a form of self-alienation? Ciaran Benson, finding precedencein Dewey’s descriptions of “a rhythm of surren-der and reflection” in aesthetic activity, describesthese states of absorption as a “re-centering” ofexperience.31 She diagnoses the phenomenon asthe absence of self-predicated thoughts. Whenself-analysis disappears and the musician is moreabsorbed in the music, she does not feel embodiedin the same way. My theory justifies the idea thatthe normal boundary of body-world has actuallychanged. But the musician has not “lost” herself;she has literally extended herself. It is not unrea-sonable then that this should result in a differentsense of agency and embodiment.


Yet is it still an emotional state? It would seemso, since the case of musical absorption need beno different from any case of normal emotionalabsorption where one is so caught up in the feelingthat one forgets oneself in the process. Moreover,there is no reason to suppose that if the progressof the music has up to this point been dictated bythe goal of emotional expression, then the musicsuddenly loses its expressive status just becausethe attention of the musician is now more fullyfocused on the music.

Hence, overall, it seems that the music just morefully constitutes and dominates the developmentof the musician’s emotion. And although the at-tention of the subject is not a necessary part of theemotional state, we may say that the musician’s ex-perience of the music more fully constitutes his orher experience of the emotion. At the same time,we should recognize that being absorbed to suchan extent is a fairly exceptional state of being. Soemotionally it is likely to be a state of great eupho-ria, where the dynamic relation with the world thatit tracks is a sense of one’s life flowing like music,of living musically.32

TOM COCHRANE

Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (CISA)1205 GenevaSwitzerland

internet: [email protected]

1. See Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens:Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness (London:Vintage, 2000); Jesse Prinz, Gut Reactions: A Perceptual The-ory of Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2004); JeneferRobinson, Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and Its Role inLiterature, Music, and Art (Oxford University Press, 2006).

2. Malcolm Budd, Values of Art: Pictures, Poetry andMusic (London: Penguin, 1995). I also accept many of theclaims of resemblance between music and expressive behav-ior made by Stephen Davies and Peter Kivy. For a recentstatement, see Stephen Davies, “Artistic Expression and theHard Case of Pure Music,” in Contemporary Debates inAesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, ed. Matthew Kieran(Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).

3. Based on a review of a number of studies into the re-lation between music and emotion, neuroscientists IstvanMolnar-Szakacs and Katie Overy argue that recognizingemotions in music is grounded by the mirror neuron sys-tem (which underlies our empathic activities), whereby thesame neurons that are active when engaging in some activ-ity are also active when observing others engaging in thesame activity. Here they focus on mirroring the intentionalactions required to produce the movements we perceive inmusic rather than the more generalized mirroring of bodily

patterns (some of which could be generated by deliberateactions). Istvan Molnar-Szakacs and Katie Overy, “Musicand Mirror Neurons: From Motion to ‘E’motion,” Social,Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 1 (2006): 235–241.

4. Damasio makes the crucial connection between themirror system and the neural map of one’s own bodilychanges, which he calls the “as-if body loop.” AntonioDamasio, Looking for Spinoza (London: Vintage, 2004).

5. Phenomenologically, it is comparable to visually per-ceiving the solidity of an object. Compare Derek Matravers,“The Experience of Emotion in Music,” The Journal of Aes-thetics and Art Criticism 61 (2003): 353–363.

6. Tom Cochrane, Shared Emotions in Music [PhD The-sis] (University of Nottingham, U.K., 2007), accessible athttp://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/archive/00000286/.

7. For example, Prinz, Gut Reactions. Also Peter Goldie,The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 2000).

8. Such as Ajay Heble, Landing on the Wrong Note:Jazz, Dissonance, and Critical Practice (London: Routledge,2000), p. 93. Compare Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: TheInfinite Art of Improvisation (University of Chicago Press,1994), pp. 256, 261, 274.

9. R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1958), p. 304.

10. John Dewey, “The Act of Expression,” in ArtisticExpression, ed. John Hospers (New York: Meredith, 1971),pp. 72–94, quote from pp. 78–79.

11. See rather Aaron Ridley, “Not Ideal: Collingwood’sExpression Theory,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Crit-icism 55 (1997): 263–272.

12. Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1980), p. 42.

13. Ridley, “Not Ideal,” p. 264.14. Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended

Mind,” Analysis 58 (1998): 10–23.15. Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,”

sec. 4.16. Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” p. 20.17. Compare Robert Anton Wilson, Boundaries of the

Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences (CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), p. 183.

18. Eric Clarke, “Listening to Performance,” in MusicalPerformance: A Guide to Understanding, ed. J. Rink (Cam-bridge University Press, 2002), chap. 13, see p. 68.

19. These claims are equally applicable to the relationbetween a singer and his or her voice.

20. Compare William James, “What Is an Emotion?”Mind 9 (1884): 188–205; Prinz, Gut Reactions, p. 134; Robin-son, Deeper Than Reason, pp. 32–37.

21. James Laird, Feelings: The Perception of Self (Ox-ford University Press, 2007). For an example of changesin physiological arousal (rather than self-reports) resultingfrom facial expression, see R. W. Levenson, P. Ekman, andW. V. Friesen, “Voluntary Facial Action Generates Emotion-Specific Nervous System Activity,” Psychophysiology 27(1990): 363–384. Laird notes that some people are moreprone to such manipulations than others. He explains thatwhen experiencing emotions, some focus more on the per-sonal cues of their bodies or actions whereas others focusmore on situational cues. Such differences are even pre-served when measuring physiological arousal. This suggeststhat the ways we attend to our emotions can manipulate


arousal in a manner compatible with my account, thoughperhaps the personal cue group is better suited to the kindsof possibilities I suggest here.

22. See E. Hatfield, C. K. Hsee, J. Costello, M. S. Weis-man, and C. Denney, “The Impact of Vocal Feedback onEmotional Experience and Expression,” Journal of So-cial Behavior and Personality 10 (1995): 293–312. Also seeA. W. Siegman and S. Boyle, “Voices of Fear and Anxietyand Sadness and Depression: The Effects of Speech Rateand Loudness on Fear and Anxiety and Sadness and De-pression,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 102 (1993): 430–437.

23. Sandy Duclos and James Laird, “The DeliberateControl of Emotional Experience through Control of Ex-pressions,” Cognition and Emotions 15 (2001): 27–56.

24. James, “What Is an Emotion?” p. 45.25. I take this from Prinz, Gut Reactions, p. 45. He cites,

for example, that one may engage in thinking (such as nav-igating a crowded room, intuitively calculating speeds andtrajectories) where the representations involved are visualand behavioral rather than conceptual.

26. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza.27. Compare Ned Block, “Review of Alva Noe, Action

in Perception,” The Journal of Philosophy 5 (2005): 259–272.28. Ira Sullivan (trumpet and saxophone) quoted in

D. D. Spitzer, “Ira Sullivan: Living Legend,” Down Beat39 (17 February 1972): 14.

29. Jim Hall (guitar) quoted in Berliner, Thinking inJazz, p. 798, note 38.

30. Curtis Fuller (trombone) quoted in Berliner, Think-ing in Jazz, p. 217.

31. Dewey, “The Act of Expression,” p. 144. Ciaran Ben-son, The Cultural Psychology of Self: Place, Morality and Artin Human Worlds (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 187.

32. I acknowledge the help I received from Greg Cur-rie, who supervised the Ph.D. from which this articlewas derived. I also thank the organizers and participantsof the conference “Situated Cognition: Perspectives fromPhenomenology and Science,” Durham University, August2006, where I presented an earlier version of this article, aswell as the two anonymous referees of this journal for theirhelpful criticisms.

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Expression and Extended Cognition