Musicality in human vocal communication: an evolutionary perspective

Abstract

Studies show that specific vocal modulations, akin to those of infant-directed speech (IDS) and perhaps music, play a role in communicating intentions and mental states during human social interaction. Based on this, we propose a model for the evolution of musicality—the capacity to process musical information—in relation to human vocal communication. We suggest that a complex social environment, with strong social bonds, promoted the appearance of musicality-related abilities. These social bonds were not limited to those between offspring and mothers or other carers, although these may have been especially influential in view of altriciality of human infants. The model can be further tested in other species by comparing levels of sociality and complexity of vocal communication. By integrating several theories, our model presents a radically different view of musicality, not limited to specifically musical scenarios, but one in which this capacity originally evolved to aid parent–infant communication and bonding, and even today plays a role not only in music but also in IDS, as well as in some adult-directed speech contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)’.

Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis revisited: Musicality increases sexual attraction in both sexes

“…We show that being exposed to music may increase sexual attraction in both sexes when rating faces of average attractiveness. In light of growing evidence for Darwin’s sexual selection theory, we will need to discuss whether his theory should stand on its own, or whether it should be integrated into broader, adaptationist theories which include other aspects of social bonding, such as singing to infants and social grooming ( Savage et al, 2020 ; Leongómez et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The current debate about the origins of music involves a wide range of theories, which can be broadly categorized into adaptationist ( Huron, 2001 ; Honing and Ploeger, 2012 ) and non-adaptationist ( James, 1890 ; Sperber, 1996 ; Pinker, 1997 ). Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis of the evolution of musicality ( Darwin, 1871 ) is one of the three frequently discussed (e.g., Zahavi and Zahavi, 1999 ; Miller, 2000 ; Varella et al, 2017 ; Verpooten, 2021 ) – and not mutually exclusive – adaptationist theories of the origins of musicality, alongside proposals for a prominent role of music in social cohesion (e.g., Roederer, 1984 ; Dunbar, 2004 ; Brown, 2007 ; Savage et al, 2020 ), parental care and infant communication (e.g., Dissanayake, 2000 , 2008 ; Falk, 2004 ; Mehr et al, 2020 ; Leongómez et al, 2021 ) and territorial antipredatory and territorial defense (e.g., Hagen and Hammerstein, 2009 ) through natural selection. The present study aims to further elucidate the role of sexual selection in the evolution of musicality from a psychological perspective.…”

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

“…This result may imply a scenario that singing behaviour emerged as one particular form of emotional vocal signals conveying internal states of the vocalizer, though its evolutionary theory has not particularly targeted music (Bryant, 2021). In fact, a melodic character of music is often considered to function in communicating mental states (Leongómez et al, 2022;Mehr et al, 2021) and infant-directed singing acts as the indication of emotional engagement (Trehub et al, 1997). Since our recordings are solo vocalizations however, our recordings may not display key features facilitating synchronization of multiple people such as regular and simple rhythmic patterns.…”

“…Our study overcomes these issues by creating a unique dataset of matched singing and speaking of diverse languages, with each recording manually segmented into acoustic units (e.g., syllables, notes, phrases) by the coauthor who recorded it in their own 1st/heritage language. Furthermore, because singing and speaking exist on a broader "musi-linguistic" spectrum including forms such as instrumental music and poetry recitation (Brown, 2000;Leongómez et al, 2022;Tsur and Gafni, 2022), we collected four types of recordings to capture variation across this spectrum: 1) singing, 2) recitation of the sung lyrics, 3) spoken description of the song, and 4) instrumental version of the sung melody (Fig. 1).…”

Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact

“…This is particularly relevant because the recruitment of right hemispheric neural networks for vocal control varies across voice modulation contexts. Following in this vein, Leongómez et al [12] (critical topics (i), (ii) and (iii)) propose a bold new model for the evolution of musicality embedded in the context of human voice modulation. The authors argue that the capacity to process musical information was driven largely by its role in solidifying human social relationships, such as bonds between parents and offspring.…”