Commentary: The Evolution of Musicality: What Can Be Learned from Language Evolution Research?

Asano, Rie; Seifert, Uwe

doi:10.3389/fnins.2018.00640

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This modeling strategy in combination with the evolutionary simulation of recursive combination as suggested by Toya and Hashimoto ( 2018 ) could provide us with a possibility to investigate why hierarchical structure building capacity has evolved in its full range of complexity in the hominin line. This allows language and music evolution research to move toward an integrated approach discussed elsewhere (Asano and Seifert 2018 ). Altogether, I hope the current paper made the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music more tractable for comparative evolutionary research and offered possible future directions for interdisciplinary research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective

Asano

2021

Primates

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A central property of human language is its hierarchical structure. Humans can flexibly combine elements to build a hierarchical structure expressing rich semantics. A hierarchical structure is also considered as playing a key role in many other human cognitive domains. In music, auditory-motor events are combined into hierarchical pitch and/or rhythm structure expressing affect. How did such a hierarchical structure building capacity evolve? This paper investigates this question from a bottom-up perspective based on a set of action-related components as a shared basis underlying cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates and humans. Especially, I argue that the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music is tractable for comparative evolutionary study once we focus on the gradual elaboration of shared brain architecture: the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits for hierarchical control of goal-directed action and the dorsal pathways for hierarchical internal models. I suggest that this gradual elaboration of the action-related brain architecture in the context of vocal control and tool-making went hand in hand with amplification of working memory, and made the brain ready for hierarchical structure building in language and music.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective

Asano

2021

Primates

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As represented in the spring school, a mechanistic approach opens up many new avenues to relate the different fields of research presented here. Computational neurocognitive modeling and computational neuroethology or biology are possibilities to yield such a unified approach (e.g., Arbib, 2016; Asano & Seifert, 2018; Fitch, 2014).…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spring School on Language, Music, and Cognition

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The interdisciplinary spring school "Language, music, and cognition: Organizing events in time" was held from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Cologne. Language, speech, and music as events in time were explored from different perspectives including evolutionary biology, social cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience of speech, language, and communication, as well as computational and biological approaches to language and music. There were 10 lectures, 4 workshops, and 1 student poster session. Overall, the spring school investigated language and music as neurocognitive systems and focused on a mechanistic approach exploring the neural substrates underlying musical, linguistic, social, and emotional processes and behaviors. In particular, researchers approached questions concerning cognitive processes, computational procedures, and neural mechanisms underlying the temporal organization of language and music, mainly from two perspectives: one was concerned with syntax or structural representations of language and music as neurocognitive systems (i.e., an intrapersonal perspective), while the other emphasized social interaction and emotions in their communicative function (i.e., an interpersonal perspective). The spring school not only acted as a platform for knowledge transfer and exchange but also generated a number of important research questions as challenges for future investigations.

show abstract

Commentary: The Evolution of Musicality: What Can Be Learned from Language Evolution Research?

Cited by 2 publications

References 32 publications

The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective

The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective

Spring School on Language, Music, and Cognition

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About