CONN 286 | Embodied Cognition: Theatre and Neuroscience

When human beings watch a performance, do we ¿suspend¿ our disbelief? Do we ¿lose¿ ourselves in the illusion of the fictive world created on stage or on a screen? Even if that ¿feels¿ like what we are doing, is it what is happening in our brains, in our cells and synapses and neurons? And what is happening in the minds of artists who are performing? What does it mean, cognitively, to enact a story, to be in role as a character, or to be a spectator for theatrical events? And why does neuroscience need and use theatrical metaphors to explain cognition? CONN 286 explores the art of theatre and its intersections with cognitive neuroscience, focusing on these two primary disciplines to open inquiry about conceptual blending and aesthetic experience. This class also draws on insights from philosophy and psychology as it introduces students to fundamental questions about and approaches to analyzing human perception, attention, memory, emotions, and meaning making.