스타니슬랍스키 시스템의 인지신경과학적 고찰 (1): 정서 기억(Emotion Memory)을 중심으로

초록

The purpose of this study was to reinterpret the concept of ‘emotion memory’ proposed by Konstantin Stanislavsky through the lens of cognitive neuroscience. Stanislavsky emphasized that ac- tors should recreate on stage the intense emotional experiences they had lived through in the past, embodying them as the emotions of their characters. However, due to the lack of scientific founda- tions at the time, his theory was transmitted to later generations in an abstract and ambiguous form, leaving actors to explore emotional expression without clear training methodologies. To address this limitation, this study adopted Antonio Damasio’s concept of Emotionally Competent Stimulus (ECS) to demonstrate that Stanislavsky's emotion memory can be explained as an integrated mechanism involving key brain regions and bodily responses. We examined the roles and functions of major emotion-related brain areas—including the hippocampus, amygdala, autonomic nervous sys- tem, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)—and analyzed how emotional triggering, physical response activation, and emotional regulation occur systematically through neuroscientific processes. Based on these findings, the study proposed a redefined concept of ‘stimulus’ in acting training. Rather than merely recalling past memories, actors need a systematically constructed training unit that organically integrates sensory stimuli, bodily responses, and emotional experiences to con- sistently trigger emotions in performance. Through this approach, Stanislavsky’s emotion memory was reconstructed into a clearer and more actionable training system grounded in cognitive neuroscience. Moreover, by introducing scientific mechanisms into the acting training process, this study opened up the possibility for the Stanislavsky system to evolve beyond an abstract theory into a practical and systematic training framework.

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