12Evolutionary Origins of Music

Question 1

Which early great apes from around 2.3 million years ago had larger brains (& greater cognitive ability) than earlier apes, & were probably making primitive tools?;
Which great apes were probably making more sophisticated tools around 1.8 million years ago?

Answer 1

Homo habilis;

Homo erectus

Question 2

When does evidence show early forms of music to emerge?

Answer 2

Over 50,000 years ago (making tools); singing probably emerged well before

Question 3

Why would anatomical properties of sight & hearing have evolved?

Answer 3

To enhance survival & reproduction (allowing animals to avoid predators & find food & mates)

Question 4

Evolutionary adaptations can evolve through either of which two processes?

Answer 4

Sexual selection - promotes reproduction (passing on genes that encode a particular trait; e.g. peacock feathers for attraction); & Natural selection - promotes survival (in order to pass on genes; e.g. avoid predators); both processes give rise to the other

Question 5

What’s the definition of the process of adaptation?

Answer 5

“Structures with modern functions that are equivalent to those that were originally selected because they conferred a survival or reproductive benefit”

Question 6

According to adaptationist accounts, what’s the evidence that music is an evolutionary adaptation?

Answer 6

Music is innate; is highly complex (the degree of complexity is not culturally determined); has a modular structure (considered a distinct type of intelligence); is not a recent cultural phenomenon (it’s thousands of yrs old – perhaps as old as language)

Question 7

Name 3 discoveries that suggest music is not a recent phenomenon

Answer 7

Ancient bone flute in Germany; electron spin dating around 37,000 yrs ago; it’s likely singing predated the bone flute up to 250,000 yrs ago

Question 8

What was Darwin’s (1872) theory based on reproductive benefits of music?

Answer 8

That music has its origin in the evolutionary process of sexual selection; (he originally said it’s unnecessary for survival; then that it evokes strong emotions; & finally that sounds evolve for reproductive purposes); male animals vocalize most during breeding season to display anger, attraction & jealousy

Question 9

What evidence has been found that supports Darwin’s theory?

Answer 9

Not all mating calls are sexually dimorphic; music is associated with other attractive features (to a mate), such as extraversion/confidence, physical movement prowess (rhythm), aerobic fitness (dancing), & musical novelty (can manipulate through violating expectations)

Question 10

Does the idea of sexually dimorphic traits (being disproportionately evident in one sex; e.g. male) extend to human musicality?

Answer 10

Perhaps an element of it; the industry is still male dominated; productivity peaks at around age 30 (mating effort & activity peak)

Question 11

Many attractive traits are not sexually dimorphic (e.g. athletic skill) but still might be a sexually selected trait. Describe some similarities between athletes & musicians

Answer 11

Takes over 10 yrs of practice to acquire skill; skills possessed by a fraction of the population; expertise demonstrated individually or through group performance; skills are required (e.g. motor control, anticipation, timing & planning); enjoyed by the population (enhance group cohesion & personal identity)

Question 12

Balancing strong emotions with objective goals are also shared between athletes & musicians (e.g. scoring goals/medals; articulating voices in polyphonic music), but there is a difference. What is it?

Answer 12

Emotional meaning is more nuanced in music

Question 13

Despite a possible overlapping for the origins of music in sexually selected traits, there are 5 other theories for the origins of music based on survival benefits. Explain the Nurturing Social Bonds theory.

Answer 13

Music evolved because of its capacity to promote group cohesion & cooperation; music can influence arousal & mood states, & sharing these may enhance social bonds

Question 14

Explain the Training Coordinated Movement theory

Answer 14

Music evolved as a means for developing skills of coordinated movement (through drumming, chanting, clapping & singing); rhythmic elements engage skills of regulated movement, which could benefit group tasks such as hunting & herding; (doesn’t explain other musical elements so lacks specificity)

Question 15

Explain the Enhancing Cognitive & Social Skills theory proposed by Cross (2003)

Answer 15

Protomusical behaviours provide a means for cognitive & social flexibility; Music is not tied to specific functions & is transposable, & this flexibility allows it to function in a wide range of contexts & across cultures; it enhances skills that are beneficial for development into adulthood

Question 16

Explain the Promoting Emotional Conjoinment theory proposed by Dissanayake (2000);

Answer 16

Music & dance originated as part of a multi-modal system of parent-offspring communication (through vocalisations, body movements & facial expressions), promoting emotional connections/bonds

Question 17

Along similar lines as Dissanayake, what did Trevarthen emphasise?

Answer 17

The developmental significance of protomusical behaviours in infant-caregiver interactions; the infant engages in vocal & kinesthetic patterns that integrate multimodal sensory information, & allows a sharing of emotional states, aiding in social & personal development

Question 18

Describe the Affective Engagement hypothesis proposed by Livingstone & Thompson (2006)

Answer 18

Music allows the ability & motivation to attune to & influence the affective states of other humans (not unique to music but other domains which share a common ancestry; e.g. theatre, dance & visual arts); these cultural activities perhaps enabled a new cognitive capacity for homo sapiens (theory of mind)

Question 19

Describe Theory of Mind

Answer 19

It refers to the capacity to take the perspective of others, (e.g. beliefs, desires, emotions & intentions), to more effectively understand, predict & influence their behaviours; provides a means for understanding others as beings whose actions & interactions are strongly guided by their affective states; also allows the ability to construct & employ abstractions or metarepresentations & their interrelations

Question 20

According to non-adaptationists, music emerged from activities & processing capacities adapted from purposes other than music. What do the 4 non-adaptationist mechanisms include?

Answer 20

Genetic drift; laws of growth & form (e.g. general relations between brain & body size); direct induction of form by environmental forces such as water currents or gravity; exaptation (when new uses are made of parts that were adapted for some other function)

Question 21

An exaptation performs a completely different function from the one for which it evolved. It involves putting old structures to new uses (e.g. feathers were initially selected for insulation, not for flight). What’s modified in exaptation?

Answer 21

The phenotype (observable structures & behaviours) is modified with no corresponding change to the genotype/genetic code (e.g. a spandrel is an architectural by product that is also visually appealing)

Question 22

Some musical elements may be adaptations, & others exaptations. How does music relate to exaptation?

Answer 22

Music is made up of an interaction of elements; many musical qualities are processed in separate neural areas, therefore musical elements may have different origins; pitch contour/melody may have been an exaptation of speech prosody; rhythm might build on different traits, such as timing mechanisms used to coordinate physical motion

Question 23

What’s Pinker’s (1997) theory about music as a human technology?

Answer 23

Music was designed as a human technology to induce pleasure by activating & challenging several distinct cognitive functions; music activates auditory scene analysis; neural processes are activated by various properties of music (using processes associated with speech prosody; emotional vocalisations; & environmental sounds)

Question 24

According to Pinker, music was invented because humans find it pleasurable to engage in processes involved in what?;
He also proposes the idea of Continuism. What is this?

Answer 24

Perception in vocal patterns; sounds in the environment; animal calls;
Music & other animal signals have common origins

Question 25

What are some problems with Pinker’s hypothesis?

Answer 25

We have extra musical associations (links to memory/meaning); it’s not just a signal we simply respond to; music must serve some kind of function (so must be adaptation)

Question 26

Adaptionist accounts seem to be more compelling, as there is more evidence for suspecting that music emerged because of it’s adaptive value. Describe some of this evidence?

Answer 26

Courtship behaviour; affective engagement; social bonding; engaging & developing cognitive & physical skills that were useful to survival/reproduction

Question 27

Besides the odd instrument, music leaves no fossils. So what were potential precursors to music?

Answer 27

Vocalisations - emergence from animal calls/birdsongs

Question 28

Traits observed in humans & nonhumans are believed to be homologous. What does this mean?

Answer 28

Traits are inherited from a common ancestor with that trait (supports idea of continuism – music & other animal signals have common origins)

Question 29

Humans & chimpanzees share 99% genetic code. What do music & chimpanzee pant hooting share?

Answer 29

They both have structure & serve social functions (pant hooting reflects affective state; used to make & modulate social contact; it’s rhythmic, contains a 10s duration, crescendo)

Question 30

Rather than being locked to a specific function (e.g. bird songs), what characteristic of human music makes it stand out from nonhuman music?

Answer 30

It’s intentionally transposable

Question 31

Describe the Particulate Principle;

How does this principle apply in terms of physics, chemistry & language?

Answer 31

It’s how discrete units from a finite set of elements are combined & permuted to give rise to higher-level structures;
Discrete units from a finite set of elements (e.g. atoms, chemical bases & phonemes) are combined & permuted to give rise to higher-level structures (e.g. molecules, genes & words)

Question 32

How does music adhere to the Particulate Principle?;

Answer 32

Discrete units of pitch & duration are combined to form higher-level units such as melody & rhythm; might be required for music to be intentionally transposable;

Question 33

When may music & language have emerged?

Answer 33

Perhaps when hominid ancestors developed the cognitive ability to apply the particulate principle to vocalisations (well after separation from the great apes)

Question 34

What do music & language both adhere to & convey?

Answer 34

Adhere to the particulate principle; convey emotional meaning via similar acoustic features (pitch, loudness, speed, etc)

Question 35

Musilanguage has been proposed as a precursor to music & language. According to Brown (2000), what is REV?

Answer 35

Referential Emotive Vocalisations – emotive response to a specific object; signifies to other animals the class of object causing the emotive response (e.g. African vervet monkey have emotive vocalisations for snake, leopard & eagle)

Question 36

Describe the 2 base stages for musilanguage

Answer 36

1. Use of lexical tone – refers to the use of pitch to convey semantic (lexical) meaning (e.g. higher tone might signal heightened emotional states, such as surprise/anger; applies to Chinese Mandarin); 2. Combinational phrase formation & expressive phrasing

Question 37

What does combination phrase formation combine?

Answer 37

Lexical tonal units to make simple phrases with higher order meanings – probably occurring when the hominids applied the particulate principle to the earliest forms of musilanguage

Question 38

What does expressive phrasing involve?

Answer 38

Modulating sequences of vocalisations in amplitude, tempo, & pitch register (e.g. positive emotional states characterized by loud, fast, high-pitched vocalisations; negative characterized by soft, slow, low-pitched vocalisations)

Question 39

Language developed into a system for communicating what?;

What did music develop into?

Answer 39

Semantic meaning;

A ritualised activity that included distinctive features such as harmony

Question 40

Cognitive capacities to perceive & produce music may have evolved as what?

Answer 40

Adaptations

Question 41

What does Cumulative Cultural Evolution explain?

Answer 41

The complexity & diversity of music as the process by which humans build on existing knowledge & skills through combined strategies

Question 42

What is Cultural Transmission?

Answer 42

The process by which we acquire existing knowledge & skills through imitation/direct instruction inter-generationally

Question 43

What is Creative Invention?

Answer 43

The process by which we continuously modify our existing knowledge & skills, increasing or altering their complexity