Music and Language in Social Interaction: Synchrony, Antiphony, and Functional Origins

Abstract

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of “musilanguage” in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language.

Music as a coevolved system for social bonding

“…Others hypothesize that musicality evolved for specific adaptive purposes, including signaling mate quality (Miller 2000), advertising male coalitions (Hagen & Bryant 2003;Merker 2000), or soothing infants (Dissanayake 2000;Falk 2004;Mehr & Krasnow 2017). Many authors have discussed the evolutionary value of music in facilitating group cohesion (e.g., Benzon 2001;Brown 2000aBrown , 2007Cross & Morley 2009;Dissanayake 2009;Dunbar 2012a;Freeman 2000;Gioia 2019;Huron 2001;Loersch & Arbuckle 2013;McNeill 1995;Merker et al 2018;Mithen 2005;Oesch 2019;Patel 2018;Roederer 1984;Schulkin & Raglan 2014;Trainor 2018;Trehub et al 2018), sometimes suggesting that music may have arisen via group selection (especially Brown 2000a). Although such proposals succeed in explaining some properties (or genres) of music, we argue that no single account succeeds as a general explanatory framework for the evolution of human musicality.…”

Efeitos da música na comunicação do idoso: panorama das pesquisas brasileiras

“…O presente estudo revisou temas consideráveis para a fonoaudiologia nos aspectos terapêuticos evolutivos da música no âmbito da melhora na comunicação, fala espontânea, linguagem, cognição e prosódia [2][3][4][5] . A tríade fonoaudiologia/ música/ neurociência, fundamenta uma importante abordagem de estimulação nos casos de pacientes acometidos por doenças neurodegenerativas, ou simplesmente para a população adulta e idosa, considerando o processo progressivo da senescência natural.…”

“…Pacientes afásicos, em que a lesão está no hemisfério esquerdo, podem ter benefícios com a terapia da entonação (MIT-Melodic Intonation Therapy). A dificuldade é na fala, entretanto, é possível realizar entonações melódicascantar 3 .…”

Musical features emerging from a biocultural musicality (Popescu,Oesch&Buck 2020; BBS commentary on Savage et al. & Mehr et al. 2020)

“…Though not a novel hypothesis, Savage et al's MSB is an impressive synthesis of evidence suggesting social bonding is the primary adaptive function for the origin and evolution of musicality in humans. This intriguing idea has seen rapid development in recent years, both in terms of theoretical refinement and increasing evidence across human and non-human animals (Oesch, 2019). Putting aside relative strengths, three aspects, relevant to both articles, seem worthy of elaboration.…”

“…For example, recent evidence suggests song can facilitate both social bonding (Oesch, 2019;Whittingham et al, 1997) and courtship in various bird species (Catchpole & Slater, 2008), while similar effects are observed in humans (Oesch, 2020). Though Savage et al do acknowledge it as "unlikely that a single 'main' evolutionary function for complex, multi-component abilities like language or music exists", we believe an ideal analysis would, when space allows, simultaneously: 1) avoid circular reasoning, 2) invoke substantive data from both human and non-human animals, and 3) be based on a distinction between the ancestral, primary or direct function of a trait or adaptation like musicality and its derived evolutionary function(s) (Oesch, 2019(Oesch, , 2020. Fortunately, evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for distinguishing direct from derived functions: shared ancestry and phylogenetic history in the former case, and unshared with a common ancestor in the latter (Ridley, 2003).…”