Appendix 3.02 Survey of The Neurosciences a
nd Music I
I
Conference 2005
From Perception to Performance
Part I. Ethology/Evolution: Do Animals have Music or Something El
se?
5 papers
Title, Category
Aim
Mus. Material, Cultural Ref.
Technology & Procedure
Main focus of interest
Conclusion
- McDermott & Hauser
(6-16)
Origins of Music Perception
Cat. 2: Consonance / dissonance
Cat
. 3: Complex sounds
2. Merker (17
-28)
Conformal Motive in Birdsong
Cat. 6: Animal sounds
- Fitch (29
-49)
Music Evolution
Cat. 6: Animal sounds
4P. Langner (50-52)
Neuronal Mechanisms of Pitch and Harmony
Cat. 1: Pitch
Cat. 2: Harmony
Testing whether
human
musical preferences
for
consonances and non-disturbing s
ounds
exist in
nonhuman primates
To highlight the uniqueness of human culture by contrasting ritual and instrumental (goal
oriented) behavior.
Emphasize vocal learning as an enabling device for ritual culture
Providing an empirical basis for research on the evolution of music making in humans
Explanation for pitch perception and the preference of the hearing system for harmonic relationships
1) Dis
sonant
versus con
sonant two
-note chords of
synthesized complex tones with ten harmonics
.
2) Aversive ”screeching” sound versus white noise CR: Western
/ Neutral
Discussion of voc
al learning
in humans and birds
.
Songs of whales, seals, parrots, hummingbirds, and songbirds
CR:
---
Human and animal sound production. Discussion of music and language: simi
larities and differences, design features.
Sound production in birds, whales, dolphins, seals.
Ape drumming.
CR:
---
No musical material
CR:
---
. a)
Humans
, b) Tamarin
monkeys can trigger two kinds of sound by
choosing their position in experiment areas. Time
spent
on each side is measured
Review of ritual human culture and of vocal learning, which is
restricted to humans,
whales, seals
, and birds, not
shared by apes
Review of vocal learning in birds, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), hominids. Clapping and drumming in apes
Review of theory and anatomical details
suggesting
an explanation of the brain’s extraction of periodicy pi
tch
Comparing
human acoustic
preferences with preferences of monkeys
Stages of imitation of ”conformal motive” in vocal output:
1) Subsong, babbling
2) Practicing pattern production 3) High
-fidelity
replication
Phylogeny of musical abilities. Possible adaptive functions of music in evolution
Temporal processing of periodic acoustic signals in brain stem and inferior colliculus. Anatomy of ventrolateral lemniscus
The studies suggest that simple acoustic preferen
ces
that are pronounced i
n
humans are not shared by primate relatives. Additional cross
-cultural research is
needed
We broke with the apes by
adding ritual culture to instrumental (practically oriented) culture.
Suggestion: The
”conformal
motive”
seem
s to play
a
profound role i
n ritual culture
Arguments for the evolutionary significance of song and motherese in childcare. Ape drumming:
potential homologue of instrumental music
Suggestion: The recognition of musical harmony, or consonance, is an intrinsic property of our
brains
P: indicates a short poster pape
r, e.g. 4P