On the Evolutionary Neuropsychology of Music

2010

This dissertation seeks to identify the mechanisms whereby music arouses emotions. It begins by asking three questions: Does music arouse emotions? If so, which ones does it arouse? And how does it arouse them? The first two questions are addressed cursorily in the opening chapters, but the majority of the dissertation focuses upon the third question. The aim of this dissertation is thus to identify the mechanisms whereby music arouses and modulates emotion. A number of such of mechanisms are identified, including: association, resemblance, speech resemblance, naturalness, and expectation. Of these, the first two are considered domain general and are thus given no further attention; the final three, however, are considered to be domain-specific and are given extended consideration, with particular emphasis being placed on Leonard Meyer’s (1956) expectation theory (and its recent revitalization by Huron [2006]). The expectation theory, however, while promising, is plagued by what is called “the rehearing problem”: if carried to its logical conclusion, the theory predicts that music will diminish in emotional impact as the listener gains familiarity with it, a prediction which seems contrary to experience. A number of scholars converged upon a solution to the rehearing problem in the mid-eighties: the musical mind, they posited, is “modular” in the manner of Fodor (1983), and affect is a product of the modular “parser” rather than of the “central processor” (or long-term memory apparatus; Jackendoff 1987, 1991). This modular solution is promising, but it demands further investigation. The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to carry out this investigation by examining the biological bases of music perception, emotional experience, and their interface. The hope is that, by investigating this interface in the biological sense, the insight gained will be of relevance to scientists and music analysts alike.

Theories of music origins and the role of musical emotions in the mind are reviewed. Most existing theories contradict each other, and cannot explain mechanisms or roles of musical emotions in workings of the mind, nor evolutionary reasons for music origins. Music seems to be an enigma. Nevertheless, a synthesis of cognitive science and mathematical models of the mind has been proposed describing a fundamental role of music in the functioning and evolution of the mind, consciousness, and cultures. The review considers ancient theories of music as well as contemporary theories advanced by leading authors in this field. It addresses one hypothesis that promises to unify the field and proposes a theory of musical origin based on a fundamental role of music in cognition and evolution of consciousness and culture. We consider a split in the vocalizations of proto-humans into two types: one less emotional and more concretely-semantic, evolving into language, and the other preserving emotional connections along with semantic ambiguity, evolving into music. The proposed hypothesis departs from other theories in considering specific mechanisms of the mind-brain, which required the evolution of music parallel with the evolution of cultures and languages. Arguments are reviewed that the evolution of language toward becoming the semantically powerful tool of today required emancipation from emotional encumbrances. The opposite, no less powerful mechanisms required a compensatory evolution of music toward more differentiated and refined emotionality. The need for refined music in the process of cultural evolution is grounded in fundamental mechanisms of the mind. This is why today's human mind and cultures cannot exist without today's music. The reviewed hypothesis gives a basis for future analysis of why different evolutionary paths of languages were paralleled by different evolutionary paths of music. Approaches toward experimental verification of this hypothesis in psychological and neuroimaging research are reviewed. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2015

Musicality can be defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by biology and cognition. Music, by contrast, can be defined as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality. One critical challenge is to delineate the constituent elements of musicality. What biological and cognitive mechanisms are essential for perceiving, appreciating and making music? Progress in understanding the evolution of music cognition depends upon adequate characterization of the constituent mechanisms of musicality and the extent to which they are present in nonhuman species. We argue for the importance of identifying these mechanisms and delineating their functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective means of studying them in human and nonhuman animals. It is virtually impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole, but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity is an excellent starting point for a research program aimed at illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an autonomous trait.

Journal of Student Research

At the intersection of music and neuroscience, the auditory system plays a critical role in human responses. Initial reception of music stimuli is followed by auditory processing, allowing people to perceive, interpret, analyze, and understand these sounds. This article will review the main stages in this sensory reception and processing of music in the nervous system and how they result in emotional responses. To aid in understanding the processing of music, the article briefly addresses the origins of music and its role in human history. Of particular interest are the aesthetic emotions – the feelings that arise as one evaluates the beauty, novelty, expressiveness, etc. of the music as one listens. We also consider whether the processing of these emotions in the brain leads to the experience of pleasure and reward in a fashion similar to that of basic survival-related behaviors such as eating and drinking. Finally, we consider brain disorders affecting the perception, evaluation,...

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain, 2011

Book Chapter in 'Sound Musicianship' Ed. A. Brown., 2012

Music Perception, 2007

address of the question 'why' humans demonstrate musical rhythmic behaviour provides a compelling evolutionary, contextualised view of rhythm as an essentially corporate activity yielding convergence of emotional and motivational states in ways which augment individuals' fitness. In broad agreement with this viewpoint it is tentatively suggested here that such a model could be termed 'socioemotional confluence signalling'. Adoption of an accordingly integrative biomusicological position circumvents many of the impasses incurred in the demarcated research agendas currently evident within this early phase of the study of human origins of music. Such a model provides a suitably broad theoretical substrate to facilitate a wide range of experimental studies which are necessary to enable the nascent field of biomusicology to progress beyond conjecture.

Musicae Scientiae, 2012

In this paper I sketch the outlines for a comprehensive theory of the psychogenesis of music. That is, a theory of how human beings may come to hear certain sounds and combinations of sounds as music. It is a theory that takes its empirical starting point in previous and well-known research findings on fundamental human interaction and communication. As such it incorporates at its core a developmental-psychological theory about the human being’s development of a sense of self in relation to others, from infancy on, and is further supported by findings from research on infants’ behavior and reactions to music. It is argued that human interaction and communication is at the outset musical – or protomusical – and that what makes interaction and communication work is the emotive, or affective power of sound (“communicative musicality” is another term that has been used for mainly the same phenomena, see Malloch, 1999/2000; Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009). Although the empirical foundations are familiar, the comprehensive picture offered by the theory is not. The theory is structured according to a main thesis that states that music is a way of “making special” human self-development, our “sense of self”. However, for this affective-communicative theory to explain not only our reactions to protomusical sound, but also music at large (music understood in a broad universal sense), it must be extended to answer certain questions about human cognition. Therefore I will start by referring to research that explains cognition in part as a capacity to categorize phenomena according their level of detail or generality.

Hellenic Journal of Music, Education and Culture Vol. 4, 2014

The origin of human musicality is often discussed within a dichotomous nature-or-culture framework. However, recent developments in neuroscience and evolutionary theory are opening up possibilities for ‘dual inheritance’ models. Emerging evidence of music’s deep roots in the most primordial areas of the brain––and of its effects on the plasticity of the neocortex––supports connections between the emotional communications of animals, musicality in human ontogenesis, and the wide variety of musical activities we participate in as the cultural creatures we are. Furthermore, a growing number of theories support a shared evolutionary origin for music and language, suggesting that music played a crucial role in the evolution of the human mind and the development of social and cultural cognition. Key literature associated with music and evolution is critically reviewed; and possibilities for integrated bio-cultural conceptions of music’s origins are considered.

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 2014

Music of varied kinds consistently triggers a large range of drives and emotions, which, in turn, induce a particular class of mental experiences known as feelings. The feelings are often pleasurable, though not necessarily. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies, in normal individuals as well as in patients with focal neurological lesions, reveal that music can change the state of large-scale neural systems of the human brain. The changes are not confined to brain sectors related to auditory and motor processing; they also occur in regions related to the regulation of life processes (homeostasis), including those related to emotions and feelings, most prominently in the insula and cingulate cortices, in the ventral striatum, in the amygdala, and in certain upper brainstem nuclei. The ease with which music leads to feelings, the predictability with which it does so, the fact that human beings of many cultures actively seek and consume music, and the evidence that early humans engaged in music practices lead us to hypothesize that music has long had a consistent relation to the neural devices of human life regulation. It is conceivable that, as a result, music-induced feelings can be informative and nourishing at the individual level and can also operate as significant promoters of sociocultural organization. We venture that the close relationship between music and feelings along with music's effectiveness in certain personal and social contexts, that is, its roles in homeostasis, explain, at least in part, the considerable degree of selection and replication of music-related phenomena, both biologically and culturally. As the invention of music forms continued and as intellectual analysis of compositions and reflection on music expanded, the practices and uses of music became less closely aligned with its affective and homeostatic aspects and, to a certain degree, gained autonomy relative to those aspects. This may account for the varied panorama of music invention, practice, and consumption that can be found today.