Nobel Laureate Studies Wynton Marsalis
Have you ever seen the “This Is Your Brain on Jazz” poster?
Neuroscientist Eric Kandel, a Nobel laureate for his work on the biological basis of memory, cites Wynton Marsalis as an exemplar what he calls “implicit memory” in his new popular science book: In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind:
…implicit memory, a form of memory that is not recalled consciously. Implicit memory is responsible not only for simple perceptual and motor skills but also, in principle, for the pirouettes of Margot Fonteyn, the trumpeting technique of Wynton Marsalis, the accurate ground strokes of Andre Agassi, and the leg movements of an adolescent riding a bicycle. Implicit memory guides us through well-established routines that are not consciously controlled…