How Dance-Based Somatic Training Shapes Aesthetic Judgment: The Mediating Role of Kinesthetic Empathy

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_127How to use a DOI?

Keywords

dance-based somatic training; embodied cognition; aesthetic judgment; dancers; kinesthetic empathy

Abstract

The role of dance-based somatic education in changing dancers’ perceptions and assessment of movement has been widely considered, although empirical evidence regarding its dimensional specificity and dose-response relationship is still inconclusive. In the present study, we aim to investigate the influence of cumulative dance practice on aesthetic evaluations according to four different standards, using kinesthetic empathy as a possible mediator. In all, 120 right-handed participants were divided evenly between dancers and controls without a dancing background. The subjects were assessed for nine dance videos regarding their level of technicality, expressivity, innovation, and emotional valence. Dancers outperformed the controls on technicality (d=0.78) and expressivity (d=0.65), while having slight advantages on the other dimensions. There was a saturating quadratic association between aesthetic sensitivity and training experience, at approximately 9.2 years. Kinesthetic empathy accounted for 57.4% of the indirect effects on the variables discussed above.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Shiyue Bi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - How Dance-Based Somatic Training Shapes Aesthetic Judgment: The Mediating Role of Kinesthetic Empathy
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1186
EP  - 1195
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_127
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_127
ID  - Bi2026
ER  -