Origins of music in credible signaling

Abstract

Music comprises a diverse category of cognitive phenomena that likely represent both the effects of psychological adaptations that are specific to music (e.g., rhythmic entrainment) and the effects of adaptations for non-musical functions (e.g., auditory scene analysis). How did music evolve? Here, we show that prevailing views on the evolution of music — that music is a byproduct of other evolved faculties, evolved for social bonding, or evolved to signal mate quality — are incomplete or wrong. We argue instead that music evolved as a credible signal in at least two contexts: coalitional interactions and infant care. Specifically, we propose that (1) the production and reception of coordinated, entrained rhythmic displays is a co-evolved system for credibly signaling coalition strength, size, and coordination ability; and (2) the production and reception of infant-directed song is a co-evolved system for credibly signaling parental attention to secondarily altricial infants. These proposals, supported by interdisciplinary evidence, suggest that basic features of music, such as melody and rhythm, result from adaptations in the proper domain of human music. The adaptations provide a foundation for the cultural evolution of music in its actual domain, yielding the diversity of musical forms and musical behaviors found worldwide.

Children infer the behavioral contexts of unfamiliar foreign songs

“…This is not to say that experience does not shape listeners' understanding of music: it obviously does, as evidenced by common sense and a variety of studies showing modest differences in the interpretation of musical structure across cultures [e.g., 51]. But the basic role of music in arousal and mood regulation (which laypeople consider a function of music; [52]) makes it plausible that a substantial portion of musical understanding stems from innate signalling mechanisms not unlike those found in nonhuman vocalizations [e.g., those found in the contexts of infant care and territorial signaling; [19]]. Musical understanding might thus result from a unique combination of acoustic predispositions, built on those shared with other species; social experience, which plays a key role in early learning [53][54][55], including in music [47,56,57]; and their interaction with related modalities, such as movement and emotion [58,59].…”

“…Two forms of evidence point to an alternative explanation, however. First, systematic form-function pairings are found in vocalizations throughout the animal kingdom [16,17], possibly reflecting innate aspects of vocal signaling [18,19]. Indeed, emotional vocalizations are not only cross-culturally intelligible in humans [20,21,including in music, 22], but also between species [23].…”

The Temporal Statistics of Musical Rhythm across Western Genres: An Amplitude Modulation Phase Hierarchy Model

“…For the PAD modelling approach, which does not make any adjustments for the cochlea, the 2:3, 3:4 and 4:5 integer ratios were also prominent. This statistical patterning may be related to the different metrical structures and integer ratios that characterise music from different cultures [1,71], and even the songs of different species [72]. For example, even prior to the acquisition of culture-specific biases of musical rhythm, young infants (5-month-olds) are influenced by ratio complexity [73].…”

“…Music and language are ubiquitous in human societies [1]. Rhythmic structure is a fundamental feature of both domains, and involves sequences of events (such as syllables, notes, or drum beats) which have systematic patterns of timing, accent, and grouping [2].…”

Across demographics and recent history, most parents sing to their infants and toddlers daily

“…Melodies produced live and experienced at home by known social partners can carry social meaning for infants [11,12]. In a similar fashion to the social meaning transmitted by language and dialect [13,14], or food preferences [15], parental singing may provide a credible signal of social information concerning group membership, which infants can use to guide their future social interactions [11,16,17].…”