Cognitive psychology meets art: exploring creativity, language, and emotion through live musical improvisation in film and theatre

Abstract

Creativity is primarily defined as a mental phenomenon that engages multiple cognitive processes to generate novel and useful solutions to problems. There are two core problem-solving modes: long-term deliberate methodical vs. short-term spontaneous. Despite behavioral models integrating the multiple activities (e.g. technical and financial issues, emotional responses) arising within and the socio-cultural effects surrounding the long-term creative process in various artistic disciplines, no systematic study exists of short-term improvisatory behavior in response to emotional stimuli within such ecologically valid contexts as film and theatre. In this paper I present and discuss the novel use of one cinematic and one theatrical project that investigate spontaneous creative thinking and emotion perception, particularly as it pertains to inthe-moment expressive translation of emotional scenic variables such as actors' movements and dialogue to musical language. Both projects explore the six universal human emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) and were performed and recorded with live improvised music by professional jazz musicians. Combining visual scene analysis with musical feature analysis of the improvised scores, I propose a cognitive feedback model of spontaneous creative emotional innovation that integrates music, spoken language, and emotional expression within the context of live music scoring in both film and theatre. This work also serves as an appeal towards more arts-based cognitive research and interdisciplinary methods in the study of human intelligence.

Minds in the Spotlight: Using Live Performance Art to Uncover Creative Thinking Processes

“…In contrast to my previous film and theatre projects where I created emotional visual and linguistic stimuli specific to the six basic universal human emotions (i.e. anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise), 21 this project, although full of emotional moments, was about ideas and specific concepts. The current project took on a more analytical tone in an effort to offer the improvising musician a unique space from which to react to content not easily identifiable as emotional, i.e.…”

“…For a detailed discussion and analysis of a novel study of improvised music to a silent film and within a Spanish-language theatrical production, see López-González (2015). 21 I choose music and the visual and performing arts' worlds because of their live, integrative multisensory artistic experiences; and film and theatre offer rich platforms for such experimentation outside of the traditional laboratory setting. Continuing in this vein, I discuss here a new project titled In Session (Chez L'Analyste) 22 which was funded and produced in English by La Petite Noiseuse Productions in 2015.…”

“…Analysis of my previous film and theatre projects revealed that the improvised music primarily created thematic congruence between sound, image and text via the combination of specific musical elements precisely to focus, enhance, and elicit a set of emotions and particular key narrative details. 21 A review of a single performance recording from In Session revealed the following significant musical changes elaborated in Tables 1 through 6. Significant musical changes are defined here as moments in which the music altered in one or more ways with regards to loudness, pitch, tempo, and/or rhythm.…”

Teenagers Tell Better Stories After Improvisational Theater Courses

“…Language is posited to be involved in improv, and some teachers use it within an artistic framework (López-González, 2015 ), to learn a second language (Matthias, 2009 ; Cocton, 2015 ) or improve the native language (Adebiyi and Adelabu, 2013 ). While most teachers and improv facilitators think improv can improve language, very little quantitative study to confirm this claim.…”