Mental Representation of Spatial Movement Parameters in Dance

Via training, dance experts develop special experience-based embodied representations of body and movement. Professional dancers, amateurs and novices sorted central functional nodes of two dance movements according to their spatial equivalence. Results of a hierarchical cluster analysis and classification probabilities revealed movement-specific differences in mental representations related to skilllevel. Cluster solutions of experts reflected functional structures, with adequate spatial parameters associated to the main movement phases. Amateurs achieved similar results only for the less complex movement, whereas novices showed nonfunctional results. The findings suggest that only dance experts’ distinct embodied representations of dance movements include information about body-centered spatial parameters.