identified,but these areas also contain specialized subareas.Evidence is
good,for example,that when one learns a foreign language in adulthood,
second-language information is focused in regions in the language areas
quite distinct from those involved in establishing one’s first language
(Ojemann 1983;Calvin 1996).
We should recognize,however,that there is uniformity in this diver-
sity.All specializations in mammalian behavior are reflected neurally as
localized functions of the cerebral cortex.Careful analysis of sensory rep-
resentation in the mammalian brain reveals that sensory and motor pro-
jection areas account for essentially all of the surface area of the brain.
The extensive human language areas are unusual in this regard,being
more purely association cortex to which there are no direct sensory or
motor projections.However,if one thinks of language areas as process-
ing centers for elaborated auditory information (secondary auditory
cortex,as it were) with linkages to other sensory modalities and to motor
areas for controlling the voice box,tongue,and lips,the same general-
ization for other mammals applies to humans.Essentially all of the
surface of the cerebral cortex has been mapped as related to sensory and
motor activities that enable animals to know their external worlds.
Evolution of mammalian cerebral cortex is thus correlated with that of
specifically mammalian features in cognitive and perceptual capacity.I
discuss this issue as a view of the mind-brain problem in Jerison (1991).
In summary,I conclude that knowing and perceiving are essentially
the same thing described with different words when different aspects of
essentially the same mental activity are studied.I view the brain’s work
in supporting this cognitive-perceptual activity as creatingthe experi-
enced real world within which behavior occurs.
As I remarked at the beginning of this chapter,music is essentially
a human category defining certain kinds of activities and experiences,
and to appreciate its evolution we can examine the evolution of human
capacities to categorize in this way.At the most general neurobiological
level it is the evolution of the neocortex of the mammalian brain.Since
birds have been important animal models for musicality,I will consider
their brains,too.I wish now to summarize what we know from the fossil
record about the evolution of the brain,in particular the neocortex,in
mammals with a few words on the limited history of the evidence on
birds.Brain Evolution
All known vertebrate brains,both living and fossil,have clearly identifi-
able forebrain,midbrain,and hindbrain.As I do not have an illustration
of a standard brain,I traced a fossil brain that could serve as a standard189 Paleoneurology and the Biology of Music