We followed a phenomenological approach based on introspection, i.e., we started from the mental point of view rather than from the neuronal substrate material, following an exploratory interview method. Hence, with the aim of tackling directly the study of the matter of thought, we opted for a holistic method. We note that this follows from methodological difficulties in developing reliable tools likely to validate such direct experience. But in the majority of cases, these studies are still far from being able to concretely grasp the essence of the matter of thought. In a bottom–up experimental approach, neurosciences tackle the functional description of the brain by proposing methods aimed at establishing the neural correlates of mental states with the results of behavioral experiments and neural mapping. Such a problem emerges in particular when one juxtaposes human sciences to natural sciences ( Varela et al., 2001 for contribution of philosophy to cognitive sciences, see also Laplane et al., 2019). However, this task proves difficult, as it attempts to join methods often considered as opposed. There is undoubtedly a desire to make the acquired knowledge coherent that is, for example, linking the functional description of the brain, jointly from a mental and a neural point of view. In addition, a very fertile interdisciplinary field of research has emerged over the last years, favoring the combination of approaches and concepts from the humanities, cognitive sciences and experimental neurosciences. The causal link between complex cognitive processes and the regulation of gene expression, including epigenetic mechanisms, is now being investigated, especially about learning and memory processes or child behaviors (for reviews, see Borrelli et al., 2008 Grigorenko et al., 2016 O’Donnell and Meaney, 2020). Since, considerable scientific progress have been made, mainly in the field of experimental neurosciences (for a review, see Dehaene and Changeux, 2011). James in the United States ( Thomas, 2019). The modern period of this search was in fact initiated in the second part of 19th century, with the founders of the experimental psychology, W. The objective of deciphering such a functional architecture is therefore extremely ambitious. Scientific studies on human cognition reveal that the brain, including its sensory inputs involved in cognitive functioning, has a highly complex structural and functional architecture. We found that musicians use multiple strategies and select individual combinations of MAs belonging to these three different sensory modalities, both in isolation and in combination. We propose a conceptual framework which summarizes the process of note identification in five steps, starting from sensory detection and ending with the verbalization of the note pitch, passing through the pivotal role of MAs and MRs. Such categorization enabled us to characterize the mental representations (MR) that allow musicians to name notes in relationship to eleven basic typologies of anchorpoints. Although the anchorpoints are not universal, and differ between individuals, they can be grouped into categories related to three main sensory modalities – auditory, visual and kinesthetic. We named these elements “mental anchorpoints” (MA). Sixty-seven musicians (music students and professionals) were interviewed, revealing that musicians utilize intermediate steps during note identification by selecting or activating cognitive bricks that help construct and reach the correct decision. By adopting a mixed approach combining qualitative analyses of interviews based on introspection with quantitative statistical analyses carried out on the resulting categorization, this study describes a variety of mental strategies used by musicians to identify notes’ pitch. We propose to address this question by looking at one possible task for recognition of a “signifying sound”, as an example of conceptual grasping of a perceptual response. However, we argue that systemic studies of individual thought may still contribute to a useful and complementary description of the multimodal nature of perception, because they can take into account individual diversity while still identifying the common features of perceptual processes. Most frequently, reductionist approaches are followed for deciphering the neuronal circuits functionally associated with cognitive processes. Nowadays, systemic approaches based on introspective methodologies are no longer fashionable and are often overlooked or ignored. To this day, the study of the substratum of thought and its implied mechanisms is rarely directly addressed.
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