The musician’s first instrument

Introdução: A psicomotricidade pode ser definida como a ciência que trabalha de forma associada o corpo e a mente. Recursos de realidade virtual podem ser ferramentas lúdicas para estimular a aquisição e o aperfeiçoamento de habilidades neuromotoras em crianças em fase de desenvolvimento. Objetivo: analisar a influência do Nintendo Wii® nas atividades psicomotoras e na percepção corporal de crianças saudáveis da rede pública de ensino. Materiais e métodos: Foram envolvidos nessa amostra aleatória três estudantes de ambos os gêneros, na faixa etária de 7 a 10 anos. A percepção corporal foi avaliada através do Protocolo de Askevold, o equilíbrio foi verificado pelo teste de Fukuda e o desempenho de práticas psicomotoras foi analisado por meio do protocolo de teste psicomotor de Fonseca. Após avaliações, as crianças passaram por um treinamento com a realidade virtual duas vezes por semana durante 30 minutos, totalizando 10 sessões. Para analisar os resultados obtidos foram considerados valores absolutos e relativos. Resultados: Referente ao COG Wii Fit® e estabilidade pôde acompanhar ganhos do momento pré para o pós. As pontuações aumentaram praticamente em todos os jogos utilizados na intervenção. Além disso foi verificada melhorias importantes na percepção corporal dos estudantes, ou seja, saindo de uma condição de hiperesquematia para normoesquematia. Conclusão: Pôde-se constatar que o treinamento com a realidade virtual influenciou positivamente o desempenho nas atividades psicomotoras e percepção corporal de todas as crianças analisadas.

Introduction In educational research today there is certainly more acceptance of both qualitative and quantitative methods than ever before. In 1990 these were known as the and social-scientific methods. paradigms behind these two methodologies are diametrically opposed. Where the humanist seeks document unique experiences, the social scientist is problem oriented, looking for uniformity of behaviors across a population in order predict the solution the problem. humanist tends prefer small-scale, individualized interpretation the social scientist's documentation of variations from the norm of a population of individuals. humanist writes in a flowing, narrative style, while the social scientist uses the structure and language of an experimental report. These same polarities occur in music education research. Although the first publications of Journal of Research in Music Education were heavily historical, research in music education developed primarily through the methodologies of the social sciences. Today researchers have breached the quantitative world of The Effect of __ on __, and opted for the direct observation and narrative writing style of qualitative methods. There are even a few working in that middle ground who employ both methodologies for a more balanced view of the research problem. Some researchers even recommend methods from other disciplines help better understand what happens in music education classrooms. (1) Like the historical disciplines of other subjects, historical studies in music education have always been predominantly a qualitative field. Indeed, most of the literature about historical music education research solidly defends the humanistic approach. George Heller and Bruce Wilson emphasized the need for the narrative form. (2) They stated that music education history does not seek isolate causes but to complex relationships. (3) However, there are various way try explain complex relationships and qualitative methods are only one of them. While not many in number, there are quantitative research articles in music education history. (4) This change in methodology parallels the research of historians across the country. To help understand the methodological possibilities, this research paper compares the approaches described in Charles Tilly's article How (and What) are Historians Doing? (5) with applications in historical music education research. Some of the examples Tilly cited do not have exact parallels in music education research. In those cases, I found studies that employed a similar approach, or otherwise fit into Tilly's categorical descriptions. To further develop this comparison, I also describe various methodologies for historical research (immersion/saturation, oral history, content analysis, collective biography, and the use of genealogical and government sources) and apply them music education research, as ways document music education history--to look back in time. Approaches Historical Investigation In 1990 Charles Tilly described various types of investigative modes available the historical researcher, each of which represented a valid, but alternative, view of history. To help clarify his ideas of alternative histories, he divided research into four areas or quadrants, one for each approach uncovering history. These are: small-scale, humanistic; large-scale, humanistic; large-scale, social-scientific; and small-scale, social-scientific. (6) To better understand these quadrants, Figure 1 is a comparison of research in historical music education with the examples in Tilly's article. Tilly first addressed the small-scale, humanistic approach, represented by Carlo Ginsberg's Cheese and the Worms: Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. (7) This is essentially a study of one man, a miller named Dominco Scandella, in one place and time, an Italian village of the sixteenth century. …

Body awareness and reactivity dysfunction are characteristic of a range of psychiatric disorders. Although the neural pathways communicating between the body and brain that contribute to these experiences involve the autonomic nervous system, few research tools for studying subjective bodily experiences have been informed by these neural circuits. This paper describes the factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity of the Body Awareness and Autonomic Reactivity subscales of the Body Perception Questionnaire-Short Form (BPQ-SF). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to data from three samples collected via the internet in Spain and the US and a college population in the US (combined n=1320). Body awareness was described by a single factor. Autonomic reactivity reflected unique factors for organs above and below the diaphragm. Subscales showed strong reliability; converged with validation measures; and differed by age, sex, medication use, and self-reported psychiatric disorder. Post hoc analyses were used to create the 12-item Body Awareness Very Short Form. Results are discussed in relation to the distinct functions of supra- and sub-diaphragmatic autonomic pathways as proposed by the Polyvagal Theory and their potential dysfunction in psychiatric disorders.

Background: A psychomotor physiotherapist and a clinical psychologist had collaborated on patients consistently for several years, when their individual therapeutic approach had turned out to be insufficient. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the therapists’ understanding of their patients and the therapeutic processes they had been involved in, and to develop concepts in order to understand the concurrent therapeutic processes. Design and method: This qualitative study is based on a grounded theory approach. The two strategically chosen therapists participated in “mini focus-group” interviews, in data transcription and in the analyzing process. Findings: Three empirical categories emerged from the therapists’ experiences. The core category “Body awareness: a vital aspect in mentalization” was comprised of two main categories: (1) “The over-stretched children in the grown-up patients”; and (2) “The traumatized children in the grown-up patients”. Conclusion: Reduced body awareness seemed to correspond with lacking or fragmented memories of their own life history. Body awareness was a vital aspect in the therapeutic processes. Future challenges seemed to become manageable for the patients once they had realized that the resources for coping with these demands were available within themselves.

The Handbook of Qualitative Research in American Music Education is a resource for music education researchers, music education graduate students, and P-16 music teachers. Qualitative research has become an increasingly popular research approach in music education in the last 20 years and until now there has been no source that clarifies terms, challenges, and issues in qualitative research for music education. This Handbook provides that clarification and presents model qualitative studies within the various music education disciplines. The first section of the text defines qualitative research, provides a history of qualitative research in music education, clarifies epistemological foundations and theoretical frameworks and addresses quality in qualitative research. The approaches of case study, ethnography, phenomenology, narrative, and practitioner inquiry are addressed in the second section. Part III examines data collection and analysis with regard to observations, interviews, documents and multi-media data. Within the 11 chapters in the fourth part of the book authors provide syntheses of qualitative research within various areas of music education (i.e., early childhood, strings, and teacher education). The final part of the book examines technology, rigor, ethics, and the future of qualitative research.

Introduction As a medical student's first encounter with human anatomy, cadaveric dissection facilitates a comprehensive, three-dimensional (3D) understanding of the human body. We believe that this interaction is vital for future clinicians' ability to interpret medical imaging, specifically when the anatomy may be viewed in different planes, such as in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). In this study, we evaluated how learning anatomy through cadaveric vs. virtual dissection software programs affected medical students' ability to interpret medical imaging, as well as the impact it had on student satisfaction with their anatomical education. Methods Twenty first year medical students and 8 senior-level pre-medical students were recruited for this study, each of them having no prior experience with cadaveric dissection. The first year medical students learned anatomy via virtual dissection software, while the pre-medical students performed in-person dissections. After both groups completed the musculoskeletal system in their respective program, each student was given a 16-question agree/neutral/disagree survey with questions regarding their confidence and satisfaction with their anatomical education, as well as questions about respecting human dignity and empathizing with future patients. Following the survey, each student was asked to complete a 30-question open-answer assessment which asked them to identify various musculoskeletal structures on MRI scans. Both cohorts received identical assessments and were given the same time restrictions. Two months later, each student was asked to complete a second, identical 30-question assessment in order to evaluate anatomical knowledge retention. Results The pre-medical students who were enrolled in a human anatomy dissection course scored higher than the first year medical students learning anatomy virtually on both assessments in this study. The pre-medical students had average scores of 43.3% (SD 9.4) and 41.7% (SD 10.8) for the initial and 2-month assessments, respectively. The first-year medical students had average scores of 37.5% (SD 12.6) and 32.2% (SD 13.4) for the initial and 2-month assessments, respectively. Additionally, the survey results demonstrated that the majority of first-year medical students (90%) felt that the virtual software was inadequate compared to in-person dissection. The survey also revealed that those who participated in cadaveric dissection developed more respect for the dignity of human beings and empathy for future patients (87.5% and 100%, respectively) compared to those who did not (25% and 5%, respectively). Conclusion This study demonstrates that cadaveric dissection provides several benefits to future physicians. In-person dissection facilitates a deeper understanding of the anatomy, and provides a 3D awareness of the human body that enables future physicians to comprehend anatomy on multiple planes. Additionally, this study demonstrates that cadaveric dissection not only improves student satisfaction, but it develops intangible characteristics in future physicians such as respect and empathy for human beings.

ABSTRACTBilateral differences in Ionic skin conductance were found to be related to lateral body awareness. The side of the body reported by the subject to be the side of greater awareness as tested by the Fisher Body Focus (Questionnaire) was also the side of greater tonic skin conductance for those subjects showing statistically reliable bilateral differences in Both skin conductance and body awareness.

Despite the coherence and seeming directness of our bodily experience, our perception of the world, including that of our own body, may constitute an inference based on ambiguous sensory data and prior expectations. In this article, I apply a 'psychologised' version of the recently proposed free energy framework to the understanding of certain disorders of neurological unawareness in order to examine how inferential processes may determine our body perception. I specifically consider three facets of body perception in such disorders: namely, the 'external body' as inferred on the basis of exteroceptive signals and related predictions; the 'internal body' as inferred on the basis of proprioceptive and interoceptive signals and related predictions; and lastly the 'impersonalised body' as inferred on the basis of signals from social and third-person perspectives on the body and related predictions. Several conclusions will be drawn from these considerations: (a) there is a deep interdependency of prior beliefs and sensory data; as the brain uses sensory data to update its virtual model of the world, lack or imprecision of sensory prediction errors may lead to aberrant inferences influenced disproportionally by outdated, premorbid predictions; (b) interoception and interoceptive salience have a unique role in our inferences about body awareness and (c) social, 'objectified' prior beliefs about the body may have a silent but potent role in our bodily self-awareness. Finally, the article emphasizes that our learned, virtual model of the body is depended on the nature and thus integrity of the very body that allowed the model to be formed in the first place.

This paper examines the cognitive and emotional positive outcomes of the music education and their implications to the mental health of students. To be more exact, it examines the effects of music education participation on such cognitive abilities as memory, attention, and executive function, on emotional regulation and mental health outcomes. Mixed-method design was used, where the total number of secondary school students was 200 with 100 in music education group and another 100 in control group. The cognitions performance was evaluated by using the tasks that tested the working memory, selective attention, and executive performance. The levels of emotional regulation were measured with the help of the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Social and emotional competence questionnaire (SECQ) and the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 were used to measure the level of anxiety and depression. Results showed that the music education group did far better compared to the control in all the cognitive measures. In addition, students with music education group were more able to control their emotions, and less anxious and depressed. It was discovered that in the qualitative interviews, the students viewed music education as a means that can be employed to express their emotions and overcome stress. All these results indicate that music education promotes cognitive and emotional growth that it may be a possible intervention that may enhance the mental health of students. This paper reveals the need to incorporate music education into the school curriculum that will enable them to contribute to cognitive and emotional development that leads to the well being and the overall school performance of the student.

In this paper I try to give an insight into my artistic investigation of bodily sensations. Externalizing unpleasant physical sensations through artistic practice supports the processing of disturbed body sensations and also means relief. The artistic transfer of symptoms to an outer locus enables a better understanding of one’s own altered corporeality caused by the chronic illness of multiple sclerosis (MS). As a visual artist, I have been working on issues of body expression and body awareness for about 40 years. The diagnosis of MS in 2017 and the incoming paresthesia fundamentally changed the perception of my own body (Fig. 1). When the body is no longer the same, visual representations also demand a new way of artistic exploration. I am in the advantageous position as an artist to have a tool in my hand to formulate lived experiences, yet a new way of dealing with this tool is required. Interestingly, it is not only the artistic practice that changes through the illness, but also the new artistic approach has an effect on the perception of the body. Giving a visual language to the phenomena of a chronic illness means a psychological processing and feeling whole again in an afflicted body. In addition, I touch on fundamental questions of possibilities of representation of the invisible and mediation of subjective experiences which can be of interest in the clinical context, but also between affected persons.KeywordsSensory disorderBodily sensationPerceptionSelf-awarenessAlienated bodyArtVisual representationExternalizationMicro-phenomenologyMultiple sclerosis (MS)

This study examined whether body perception (BP) and body satisfaction (BS) among adolescents correspond with healthy body size criteria as recommended by various world health authorities, and assessed the relationships between BP and BS and physical activity (PA) among adolescents. Participants included 6274 Israeli boys and girls from grades 7–12 who took part in the first Israeli Health and Nutrition Youth survey. Data regarding their BP and BS, body mass index (BMI) and PA were gathered. Among the overweight and obese participants, 66.4% and 40.6% of the boys, respectively, and 46.7% and 26.1% of the girls, respectively, perceived their body shape and size as satisfactory (OK). Another important finding was that overweight and obese girls were three times more active than underweight girls, and the highest per cent of active boys appeared among the overweight boys or those who perceived themselves as fat. Regression analyses revealed that BMI, gender and age accounted for 29.8% of the variance in participants' BP; BMI, gender and age accounted for 22.1% of BS variance, and PA was not related to either BP or BS. In conclusion, adolescents do not perceive their body according to healthy body size criteria recommended by various world health authorities. In addition, PA as a variable does not explain body image. Therefore, increasing body awareness seems to be a fundamental step in programs that aim to reduce obesity.

This paper examines Western music education through Kenneth Burke's dramatism, revealing how traditional pedagogical practices function as symbolic actions perpetuating cultural hierarchies and conservative ideologies. We argue that institutionalised music education employs rhetorical mechanisms conflating scientistic and dramatistic approaches to music, particularly through repertoire selection and error correction. These mechanisms position certain works as inherently “correct” while othering alternatives, maintaining cultural supremacy that privileges Western Common Practice traditions and potentially limiting students’ creative development and contemporary career opportunities. We demonstrate how institutions tacitly deploy these mechanisms, creating self-perpetuating musical conservatism that disconnects students from industrial practices and innovation. In response, we propose the Shared Music Vocabulary (SMV) as an alternative framework acknowledging music education as rhetorical symbolic action entangled with social, political, and cultural identities. This approach prioritises intellectual property generation and embraces multiple disciplines simultaneously, offering more inclusive and industrially relevant music education.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is an enigmatic illusion that creates a feeling of owning an artificial limb. Enthusiasts of this paradigm assert that it operationalizes bodily self-awareness, but there are reasons to doubt such a clear link. Because little is known about other functional contributions to the RHI, including effects of context-dependent visual processing and cognitive control or the ability to resolve intermodal conflict, we carried out two complementary experiments. In the first, we examined the relationships between the RHI and (1) body awareness, as assessed by the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ); (2) context-dependent visual processing, as assessed by the rod-and-frame test (RFT); and (3) conflict resolution, as assessed by the Stroop test. We found a significant positive correlation between the RHI-associated proprioceptive drift and context-dependent visual processing on the RFT, but not between the RHI and body awareness on the BPQ. In the second experiment, we examined the RHI in advanced yoga practitioners with an embodied lifestyle and a heightened sense of their own body in space. They succumbed to the illusion just as much as did yoga-naïve control participants, despite significantly greater body awareness on the BPQ. These findings suggest that susceptibility to the RHI and awareness of one's own body are at least partially independent processes.

Research shows the disruptive effects of early maltreatment on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning in adulthood. Psychotherapists not only tend to report higher rates of personal experience with early maltreatment, but also fewer mental problems and disturbances in adulthood, as compared to other professions. However, the role of the ANS in these processes has been understudied despite the relevance of the therapist's psychological state and related nonverbal communication for the therapeutic alliance. By comparing body psychotherapists to the general population, the present study aimed to explore the effects of practicing body psychotherapy (BPT) on the link between early maltreatment and autonomic reactivity in adulthood. An online study included 570 body psychotherapists from 35 countries (54% from the United States, Mage = 52.92, 81% of females) and 592 participants from the U.S. general population (Mage = 51.89, 78% females). We first inspected the factorial structure of the Body Perception Questionnaire-Short Form (Cabrera et al., 2018) in the specific population of BPT practitioners, confirming the three-factor model with one body awareness and two autonomic reactivity factors. Compared to the general population, BPT practitioners reported higher levels of childhood maltreatment, but fewer autonomic symptoms in adulthood, better differentiation of body awareness and autonomic reactivity, and a weaker association between childhood maltreatment experiences and present-day autonomic symptoms. Results are discussed in the framework of polyvagal theory (Porges, 1995, 2011). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Rubber hand illusion (RHI) is an experience that causes changes in body perception and awareness as a result of the integration of simultaneous perceived visual and tactile stimuli. After synchronous brush strokes with rubber and real hands, the person perceives the rubber hand as their own. RHI is known to alter pain perception. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the effects of RHI on pressure pain threshold and continuity of this effect. Twenty-three volunteers who developed RHI were included in our study and two conditions, illusion (synchronous) and control (asynchronous), were applied. The illusion condition was created by synchronous brush strokes, while the control condition was created by asynchronous brush application using different frequency and different finger areas in the same individuals. In both conditions, pressure pain threshold measurements with an algometer were performed at four times: baseline/1st measurement, during the brush stroke/2nd measurement, at the end of the brush stroke/3rd measurement and after the hand was removed from the environment/4th measurement. It was shown that RHI increased the pressure-pain threshold (p = 0.004) in healthy volunteers. Asynchronous brush strokes arranged as a control trial significantly decreased the pressure pain threshold (p = 0.002). It was found that the threshold values that change during the brush strokes return to the initial state after the brush strokes are terminated and the rubber hand is removed from the environment so that the effect of the illusion does not last for a long time with a single session application.