The Natural History of Musical Rhythm: Functional and Mechanistic Theories on the Evolution of Human Rhythm Cognition and the Relevance of Rhythmic Animal Behaviors

Abstract

Recently, interest has been growing in investigating rhythm cognition and behavior in nonhuman animals as a way of tracking the evolutionary origins of human musicality-that is, the ability to perceive, enjoy, and produce music. During the past 2 decades, an explosion of theoretical proposals have aimed at explaining why and how humans have evolved into musical beings, and the empirical comparative research has gained momentum. In this article, we focus on the rhythmic component of musicality and review functional and mechanistic theoretical proposals concerning putative prerequisites for perceiving and producing rhythmic structures similar to those encountered in music. For each theoretical proposal, we also review supporting and contradictory empirical findings. To acknowledge that the evolutionary study of musicality requires an interdisciplinary approach, our review strives to cover perspectives and findings from as many disciplines as possible. We conclude with a research agenda that highlights relevant, yet thus far neglected, topics in the comparative and evolutionary study of rhythm cognition. Specifically, we call for a widened research focus that will include additional rhythmic abilities besides entrainment, additional channels of perception and production besides the auditory and vocal ones, and a systematic focus on the functional contexts in which rhythmic signals spontaneously occur. With this expanded focus, and drawing from systematic observation and experimentation anchored in multiple disciplines, animal research is bound to generate many important insights into the adaptive pressures that forged the component abilities of human rhythm cognition and their (socio)cognitive and (neuro)biological underpinnings.

Harbour seals use rhythmic percussive signalling in interaction and display

“…Drumming can thus affect the receiver's behaviour by communicating fighting ability, sparing costly encounters (Owings & Morton, 1998), and attracting mates (Maynard Smith, 1974). In human groups, rhythmic components of dance and music can also serve to display capacities or exert emotional and social regulatory functions (Fink et al, 2021;Roederer, 1984;Sauciuc et al, 2022).…”

“…The most recent version of the vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis (Patel, 2021) predicts that vocal learning abilities correlate with the degree of audio-motor neural connectivity and thus rhythmic capacities. Importantly, the inclination towards rhythmic bodily (gestural) signalling possibly constitutes another prerequisite for beat perception and synchronization, i.e., entrainment to external rhythmic stimuli (Sauciuc et al, 2022).…”

Bases ecológicas e evolutivas do comportamento humano

“…A Musicologia Evolucionista se ampara em todas as abordagens evolutivas recentes que estudam o comportamento e a mente humana: Ecologia Comportamental, Etologia Humana, Psicologia Evolucionista, Coevolução Gene-Cultura e Evolução Cultural (ver os capítulos 2, 3 e 4 neste livro). Nestes últimos 22 anos houve uma explosão na quantidade de autores contribuindo para o tema e na diversidade de abordagens e propostas (e.g., Brown 2000;Cros 2001;Fukui 2001;Dunbar 2004;Fitch 2005;Brown 2007;Hagen & Hammerstein 2009;Wan 2015;Patel 2018;, Beccacece et al 2021Mehr et al 2021;Savage et al 2021;Verpooten 2021;Leongómez et al 2022;Sauciuc et al 2022;Varella 2023). Basicamente, as discussões giram em torno de se a musicalidade é um traço propriamente evoluído (uma adaptação psicológica ancestral) ou um subproduto recente de capacidades psicológicas não-musicais (Pinker 2018), e quais seriam os valores adaptativos ancestrais mais relevantes para a evolução da propensão musical humana.…”