On the biological basis of musicality

Abstract

In recent years, music and musicality have been the focus of an increasing amount of research effort. This has led to a growing role and visibility of the contribution of (bio)musicology to the field of neuroscience and cognitive sciences at large. While it has been widely acknowledged that there are commonalities between speech, language, and musicality, several researchers explain this by considering musicality as an epiphenomenon of language. However, an alternative hypothesis is that musicality is an innate and widely shared capacity for music that can be seen as a natural, spontaneously developing set of traits based on and constrained by our cognitive abilities and their underlying biology. A comparative study of musicality in humans and well-known animal models (monkeys, birds, pinnipeds) will further our insights on which features of musicality are exclusive to humans and which are shared between humans and nonhuman animals, contribute to an understanding of the musical phenotype, and further constrain existing evolutionary theories of music and musicality.

Darwin, Sexual Selection, and the Origins of Music

“…Recently, empirical research has tested Darwin's intuitions laid out as hypotheses almost two decades ago [2]. This research deals with the 'evolution of musicality', with musicality defined as a human biological predisposition to process music [3]. This is not to be confused with the study of the 'cultural evolution of music', where music is seen as a cultural product varying over history (Box 1 and Figure 1).…”

“…In contrast to research about the evolution of human musicality [3], a second strand has investigated the evolution of music, intended as a cultural product of musicality. Darwin had a clear intuition that language and birdsong are shaped by learning and transmission (see Figure 1A in main text), and this intuition can be easily extended to music (see Figure 1B in main text).…”

“…In brief, it remains unclear whether sexual selection might have shaped musicality in our ancestors [3,8,9]. What appears clear is that several strands of research are starting to actively test evolutionary hypotheses empirically.…”

Musical anhedonia and rewards of music listening: current advances and a proposed model

“…The capacity to perceive, produce, and appreciate music, together termed musicality, has been a growing topic of interest in the past 20 years of cognitive neuroscience. While most cognitive neuroscience studies on musicality focus on music perception and production skills, there has been a recent explosion of interest in the appreciation of music .…”

Cultural evolution of music

“…In the twenty first century, refined concepts 22 of biological evolution were reintroduced to musicology through the work of 23 psychologists of music to the extent that the biological evolution of the capacity to 24 make and experience music ("evolution of musicality") has returned as an important 25 topic of contemporary musicological research (Wallin, Merker, and Brown 2000;26 Huron 2006;Patel 2008;Lawson 2012;Tomlinson 2013;Honing 2018). Yet the 27 concept of cultural evolution of music itself ("musical evolution") remains largely 28 undeveloped by musicologists, despite an explosion of recent research on cultural 29 evolution in related fields such as linguistics.…”